THE SKUNK CABBAGE 
7 
revealing the enclosed spike on which the real seed- 
producing flowers are clustered ♦ The leaves develop 
later in the season, when they give some of the 
marshy hollows a distinctly tropical aspect* Large, 
oval, and pale green, often more than two feet in 
length, they rise from the buried root- stalks that 
bore the flowers in early spring* 
The Skunk Cabbage deserves its quite uncompli- 
mentary name, for even its devoted admirers, who 
seek it as the earliest of all the awakening flowers, 
feel constrained to apologise for the odour it exhales* 
It generally escapes the indiscriminate destroyers 
of flowers, for its attractive colours begin to fade 
before they are abroad* It chooses inaccessible places 
where the treacherous mud is a safe protection* Its 
odour, too, is a means of defence* And its great, 
fleshy, tropical richness and strong colouring seem 
quite disappointing when taken from their natural 
surroundings* Sometimes a rubber-booted boy is 
seen walking proudly through a swamp or along a 
footpath with the prise in his hand, carried by the 
invariably short stalk, and suggestive of the utility 
of fruit or vegetables rather than the ornamentation 
of flowers* The perennial root-stalk, deeply buried, 
insures the perpetuation of the Skunk Cabbage* 
And with each returning spring its favourite hiding- 
places will be sought by all who long for the earliest 
news of the great awakening* 
