Bear necessity

Several other images of this plant, known among other things as Skunk Cabbage, have been blipped recently. It's in bloom right now in damp places and along watercourses. A native of the moist American north-west, in the UK it's a garden escape that has been pronounced invasive by some authorities, leading to attempts at its extirpation. Personally, I rather relish the flagrant exhibitionism of its huge erect flower spike (spadix) poking out the glossy yellow hood (spathe).

Skunk cabbage has some extraordinary qualities, one being that it generates enough heat to thaw the frozen ground  around it and enable its premature ejac unfurling in early spring; another is that the musky, meaty and frankly sexual odour it emits attracts  carrion flies to fertilize it, and finally it's the favourite  hors d'oeuvre  of black bears when they first emerge from hibernation: its laxative qualities help loosen their bowels after the long months of constipated torpor.