Red and Indefinites 



their special mission, witii the help of beetles nnd other scavengers 

 of Nature, to remove from the face of the earth. In such marshy 

 ground as the skunk cabbage lives in, many small flies and gnats 

 live in embryo under the fallen leaves during the winter. But 

 even before they are warmed into active life, the hive-bees, natives 

 of Europe, and with habits not perfectly adapted as yet to our flora 

 (nor our flora's habits to theirs — see milkweed, p. 136), are out 

 after pollen. Where would they find any so early, if not within 

 the skunk cabbage's livid horn of plenty ? Not even an alder 

 catkin or a pussy willow has expanded yet. In spite of the bee's 

 refined taste in the matter of perfume and color, she has no choice, 

 now, but to enter so generous an entertainer. At the top of the 

 thick rounded spadix within, the skunk cabbage florets there 

 first mature their stigmas, and pollen must therefore be carried to 

 them on the bodies of visitors. Later these stigmas wither, and 

 abundant pollen is shed from the now ripe anthers. Meantime 

 the lower, younger florets having matured their stigmas, some 

 pollen may f^ill directly on them from the older flowers above. A 

 bee crawling back and forth over the spadix gets thoroughly 

 dusted, and flying off to another cluster of florets cross-fertilizes 

 them — that is, if all goes well. But because the honey-bee never 

 entered the skunk cabbage's calculations, useful as the immigrant 

 proved to be, the horn that was manifestly designed for smaller 

 flies often proves a fiital trap. Occasionally a bee finds the entrance 

 she has managed to squeeze through too narrow and slippery for 

 an exit, and she perishes miserably. 



"A couple of weeks after finding the first bee," says Mr. 

 William Trelease in the "American Naturalist," "thespathes will 

 be found swarming with the minute black flies that were sought 

 in vain earlier in the season, and their number is attested not only 

 by the hundreds of them which can be seen, but also by the many 

 small but very fat spiders whose webs bar the entrance to three- 

 fourths of the spathes. During the present spring a few specimens 

 of a small scavenger beetle have been captured within the spathes 

 of this plant. . . . Finally, other and more attractive flowers 

 opening, the bees appear to cease visiting those of this species, 

 and countless small flies take their place, compensating for their 

 small size by their great numbers." These, of course, are the 

 benefactors the skunk cabbage catered to ages before the honey- 

 bee reached our shores. 



After the flowering time come the vivid green crowns of 

 leaves that at least please the eye. Lizards make their home 

 beneath them, and many a yellowthroat, taking advantage of the 

 plant's foul odor, gladly puts up with it herself and builds her nest 

 in the hollov/ of the cabbage as a protection for her eggs and 

 young from four-footed enemies. Cattle let the plant alone be- 

 cause of the stinging, acrid juices secreted by it, although such 

 tender, fresh, bright foliage must be especially tempting, like the 



370 



