Skunk Cabbage Bottoms

     On April 14, this past, I was parked on a soil road by a quarter acre patch of skunk cabbage leaves in a wooded, bottomland bog of standing, one-inch water.  Suddenly, a pair of tufted titmice landed on the edge of the shallow water just a few feet from my car and drank.  I was thrilled to be so close to those pretty, little, woodland birds, even for just a minute. 
     Every year at this time I admire patches of lush, green skunk cabbage leaves when driving or walking through bottomland woods in southeastern Pennsylvania.  Skunk cabbage colonies indicate where the soil is constantly moist as this species only develops where the ground is damp.  And skunk cabbage leaves that make the soggy floors of wooded bottomlands green and lovely are visible in April because no tree leaves veil them.
     Starting to grow early in February, skunk cabbage flower hoods push up through mud, shallow water, ice or snow.  About the earliest flowers to bloom in this area, each fleshy, green and dull-purple hood generates a bit of heat that allows it to melt through ice and snow.  Each protective hood has a fleshy ball inside it, on which several tiny flowers develop.  Early insects enter each hood to sip nectar and eat pollen, spreading some of that pollen from bloom to bloom in all the hoods, thus reproducing this plant species.
     I particularly like where clear, woodland brooks tumble musically through bottomland colonies of skunk cabbage leaves under canopies of white oak trees with their dead leaves from last year still hanging on their twigs, red maple trees with their red flowers blooming, and tulip trees with straight trunks.  And spicebushes with their many tiny, yellow blossoms in April and alder bushes with last year's seed cones and this year's hanging, dull-purple catkins spread over carpets of skunk cabbage, adding to their beauty and intrigue.
     Some of those woodland brooks that flow through patches of skunk cabbage harbor brook, brown or rainbow trout, black-nosed dace, which is a kind of minnow, crayfish, and black-winged damselfly and may fly larvae among stones on the bottoms, spotted turtles, northern water snakes, and water striders walking on the surface.
     A few kinds of small, summering-only birds nest in woodland bogs and along woods streams where skunk cabbage, hellebores, shining club mosses and other kinds of plants that prefer wet feet grow abundantly, helping provide shelter for those birds on bottomland forest floors.  Those birds are veeries, which are a kind of thrush, and Louisiana waterthrushes in more southern parts of eastern North America, and winter wrens and northern waterthrushes in the more northern sections of the eastern part of this same continent.  
     Wild turkeys, white-tailed deer, gray foxes, a variety of small birds and other critters drink from skunk cabbage-lined brooks in the woods.  And black bears eat skunk cabbage leaves when they first emerge from their winter's sleep.  
     Skunk cabbage leaves are lush and lovely, and make bottomland woods green in April.  And this plant also benefits several kinds of wildlife in some way.  Look for skunk cabbage leaves in your area.