16 ] 



SKUNK-CABBAGE 



March 18, 1860. I examine the skunk-cabbage, 

 now generally and abundantly in bloom all along 

 under Clamshell. It is a flower, as it were, without 

 a leaf. All that you see is a stout beaked hood just 

 rising above the dead brown grass in the springy 

 ground now, where it has felt the heat, under some 

 south bank. The single enveloping leaf, or "spathe," 

 is all the flower that you see commonly, and those are 

 as variously colored as tulips and of similar color, — 

 from a very dark almost black mahogany to a light 

 yellow streaked or freckled with mahogany. It is a 

 leaf simply folded around the flower, with its top 

 like a bird's beak bent over it for its further protec- 

 tion, evidently to keep off wind and frost, with a 

 sharp angle down its back. These various colors are 

 seen close together, and their beaks are bent in vari- 

 ous directions. 



Journal, xiii, 199. 



WINKLE-LIKE FUNGI 



April 13, 1854. Saw an old log, stripped of bark, 

 either poplar or maple, four feet long, — its whole 

 upper half covered with that handsome winkle-like 

 fungus. They are steel-colored and of a velvety 

 appearance, somewhat semicircular, with concentric 

 growths of different shades, passing from quite black 



