Native Plants: Skunk Cabbage

Confession: I love skunk cabbage. You’ll never trust me again, will you, dear reader?  Skunk Cabbage is so much more beautiful than its name. A traditional famine food of usually well-provisioned coastal peoples, the heady and enormous yellow flowers are a feast of colour in early spring forest. It’s skunky, yes, but not in an animalistic way. It’s skunky like beautiful oil rich plants are skunky.  I associate it with spring and early summer, cool dark places, and red cedar forests.