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…
Is it the winter of their discontent? Do they seem to have lain down to die, despairing of
skunk-cabbagedom? “Up and at ‘em,” “Give it to ‘em,” “Excelsior,” “Put it through”—these
are their mottoes. Mortal human creatures must take a little respite in this fall of the year;
their spirits do ag a little.
(from The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, October 31st, 1857)

Going through the sometimes sad-making garden rituals of autumn, like bringing the houseplants indoors, raking the lawn-choking layer of crispy fallen leaves, or belatedly and hurriedly planting those leftover potted perennials in the ground before harsh frosts set in, let’s take a second to stop and ponder with Thoreau— the lowly skunk cabbage?

Skunk cabbage? you say. That’s a spring ephemeral. What could it possibly have to say to us in this season, when pumpkins, cornucopias and crunchy fallen leaves have predominated in our plant consciousness, soon to be followed by mistletoe and holly?

The strongly-scented, some would say outright smelly, Symplocarpus foetidus has many unique and useful features. It can create its own heat, up to 70 degrees of thermogenesis, an astonishing heat-producing, even snow-melting ability— better than any puffy coat, I’d wager. It is extremely long-lived and persistent: by varying accounts, plants can survive from 20 years to indefinitely. And traditionally it has been used for many medicinal purposes, having a particularly high calcium oxalate content. It is even noted that bears enjoy munching on it as a post-hibernation pick-me-up.

Of course the fascinating skunk cabbage may not be top of mind at this time of year as it waits in the wings for its brief time upon the spring stage. Spring starlets like the skunk cabbage do not hog the limelight, or get curtain calls, as a rule. Their ‘off-season’ is so lengthy, they must possess immense patience and long-game planning. Isn’t it cheering to think of the irrepressible spunk of the skunk cabbage as imagined by that incorrigible optimist, Henry David Thoreau? Isn’t it spirit-lifting, at this chilling, darkening season of the year, to think of its plucky, perky attitude as it waits for eventual spring reemergence?

Maybe the heartening pep talk from Thoreau’s cabbage cheer squad can help us get on with all those necessary, if occasionally dreary, fall garden tasks with a renewed sense of  hope. When we undertake the brazen optimism of committing our flower bulbs to the ground, (doing our best to thwart the marauding squirrels,) it reminds us, as the song proclaims ever so persuasively, “You must believe in Spring.”

Just a few short months and our beloved spring harbingers will triumphantly, intrepidly ascend once again.