A Welcome Sign
Today, I bring you Skunk Cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus, one of my favorite spring plants. I love its hardy nature– poking up even through the cold ground in its eagerness to welcome spring. Its hooded spathe and hidden spadix are gorgeous, if perhaps overlooked or underappreciated. Its roots are also absolutely incredible: strong, deep, and grounded. And its unfurling green leaves, bright in sunlit wet woodlands, are a reminder to tap our own inner strength, push through the mud of adversity, and shine forth.
Out of the Cold
Out of the snow and the mud and still-frozen ground, the skunk cabbage emerges each year. I go in search of its hooded flowers in bottomland woods, where it pushes up from the margins of vernal pools and muddy streamside banks. Sketching it each March is almost like a rite of passage, marking the transition from winter to spring. Despite the snow and cold, the great thaw has begun. We have turned a corner. Tips and Techniques– I had intended to do two sketches of skunk cabbage, one with a brush pen… Read More
Go to the Swamp
“If you are afflicted with melancholy at this season, go to the swamp and see the brave spears of skunk cabbage buds already advanced toward a New Year.” – Henry David Thoreau, 1857 I walk to the swampy margin of a nearby stream every March. It’s still cold. Still brown and gray. But I know that I will find there the first blooms of the year. Tucked inside a cloak of mottled maroon and green the tiny yellow-green flowers hide. The first waking insects will find them on warmer days than this;… Read More
Spring Begins
Before it unfolds in a grand show of color and song, spring is all subtlety. I go looking for it first in wetlands. There, blackbirds returning from the south are greeted by last year’s matted cattails and the reddening stems of dogwood. The odor of skunk cabbage is pungent; its maroon streaked hoods emerge from the mud, hiding small flowers that feed newly awakened bees. I sketch skunk cabbage every year, but this time I also discovered a patch of scouring rush (Equisetum hyemale), a leafless, hollow-stemmed primitive plant that has survived… Read More
Prophet of Hope
Yesterday was overcast and damp, but I went searching for signs of spring along the wooded streamside anyway. “If you are afflicted with melancholy at this season, go to the swamp and see the brave spears of skunk-cabbage buds already advanced toward a new year.” Leave it to Thoreau. His timeless wisdom relevant still. And as much of the world shuts down to stem the spread of coronavirus and my state braces for the worst to come, I need that swamp, that skunk cabbage, Thoreau’s insight more than ever. “See those green… Read More
Celebrating Skunk Cabbage
Why is it that the first native wildflower to bloom each year in the Northeast gets so little fanfare or attention? Could it be its unappealing name– skunk cabbage? Or the fact you have to search for it in wetlands and bottomland forests or along damp streamsides in late-February and March? Or could it be that it doesn’t really signal the end of winter, able, as it is, to thrive when there is still snow on the ground? Still, I think there is much to recommend skunk cabbage: it’s mottled deep maroon… Read More
Spring Unfolding
When the world has been brown for months, the first emergence of green is a wonderful thing. Skunk cabbage has been unfurling for several weeks now and is a most welcome sight along woodland streams and wetlands. In late winter, it sends up a maroon-striped spadix, which encloses its unpleasant smelling flower, and then in early spring it unrolls bright green leaves. I recently spent a pleasant afternoon sketching on the edge of a wooded steam, enjoying dappled sun and birdsong, and feeling grateful for this one beautiful color. Tips & Techniques–… Read More
Jean Mackay
The Nature Explorer’s Sketchbook
Listen to the Podcast
Drawn In 