Saturday, March 06, 2010
This Curious Old Vegetable
Donald Culross Peattie, An Almanac for Moderns (March 5):
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I like the skunk cabbage emerging now in the woods, for other reasons than those that endear to me innocent pretties like hepaticas and trout lilies. It has the fascination of a particularly crafty and devious old man, wrapped in a cape, and puttering about down in the leafless copses for some dubious enterprise. It is an unlikely customer to see in these parts, since aroids are a race chiefly of the tropics. With its lingering smell it defies you to touch it, and so, ingeniously protected from our vernal lust for wildflower gathering, this curious old vegetable lives on from year to year, outwitting us all, increasing, as it goes its subterranean way.Related post: Skunk Cabbage.
