April 25, 2003 Issue
Skunk Cabbage (Aroids)

In Europe, a colony of Aroids is considered one of the best of ornamentals in garden and flower shows. In Japan, through-out the Hokkaido bogs, the spring Aroids attract 10,000 visitors a day. (watch out, Susanne!)

A little Skunk information. The Aroids were known as Easter Skunk Cabbage and given the church name of “Jack in the Pulpit.” The early Dunbar loggers called them “Swamp Lanterns” as they always indicated wet and boggy places to avoid when building “skid roads”. It also seems that the beautiful flowers could be seen by drunken loggers as they weaved along the trail, keeping them from falling into the bogs.

Native peoples of the lower mainland used the leaves (Indian wax paper) for lining berry baskets and as wrap for packaging preserved foods. Bella Coola People used the leaves as biodegradable drinking cups and the Squamish people used the rubbery leaves as “sun shades”.

It is remarkable how this plant behaves. They generate and regulate their internal temperature of about 38 degrees in and around the stamen flower and during late snows this high temperature melts off the snow and ice first on the forest floor. This heat has a purpose, which is to attract insects that move to and from the warm flowers, thus pollination takes place and the flies use the warmth for their own mating. The odour of the flower is also an aphrodisiac for many early spring pollinating beneficial insects, the cabbages are a buzz of mating activity, even on cold, wet days.

One more thing, (keep this a skunk cabbage secret) they are edible if you are very, very careful with the preparation.

In the raw leaves are long sharp crystals of calcium oxalate. If the leaves are not cooked thoroughly, theses daggers will puncture membranes in one’s mouth, causing severe burning (“arum-fire in mouth”) and within 24 hours inflammation of the tongue and palate takes place. The leaves are among the largest of any North American wetlands plant, up to 1.5 meters.
March 21, 2003 Issue

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