Western Skunk Cabbage on Heart Lake Road

A couple of months ago, my mother and I were driving down Heart Lake Road on the way into town when I spotted a strand of yellow flowers along the side of the road. I asked my mother if she knew what they were. She thought they were called Skunk Flowers. She'd come across them a few times while walking the dogs along the edges of the lakes. I had her stop so I could take some photographs.

I didn't detect any strong skunky odor - perhaps because I was careful not to touch the plants. They were all situated in or around a swampy pool alongside of the road.

From Wikipedia: Western Skunk Cabbage:

Western Skunk Cabbage (Lysichiton americanus), also called Yellow Skunk Cabbage or Swamp Lantern, is a plant found in swamps and wet woods, along streams and in other wet areas of the Pacific Northwest, where it is one of the few native species in the arum family. The plant is called Skunk Cabbage because of the malodorous, distinctive "skunky" odor that it emits. This odor will permeate the area where the plant grows, and can be detected even in old, dried specimens. The foul odor attracts its pollinators, scavenging flies and beetles.

While some consider the plant to be a weed, its roots are food for bears, who eat it after hibernating as a laxative or cathartic. The plant was used by indigenous people as medicine for burns and injuries, and for food in times of famine, when almost all parts were eaten. The leaves have a somewhat spicy or peppery taste. Caution should be used in attempts to prepare Western Skunk Cabbage for consumption, as it contains calcium oxalate crystals, which result in a gruesome prickling sensation on the tongue and throat. Although the plant was not typically part of the diet under normal conditions, its large, waxy leaves were important to food preparation and storage. They were commonly used to line berry baskets and to wrap around whole salmon and other foods when baked under a fire. It is also used to cure sores and swelling.

From the Seattle Times: Skunk cabbage - touch it and you'll pay smelly price by Lynda V. Mapes:

Fresh and succulent — but smelling like carrion — they look like something from the planet Venus, with vivid yellow, satellite-dishlike blooms bright enough to earn skunk cabbage its nickname: Swamp Lantern.

Odiferous, luminous and dramatic, Lysichiton americanum graces low wet spots from the earliest wan gray days of spring into full summer.

Brush any part of the plant and its trademark skunky scent will bite the air. Bite back, and you'll regret it.

Like most plants in the Arum family, skunk cabbage is imbued with microscopic, needlelike crystals of calcium oxalate housed in specialized cells called idioblasts.

Each contains a large bundle of double-pointed, sharp, needlelike crystals called raphides. When the cells are ruptured by chewing or biting, the crystals are ejected into soft mouth and digestive-tract tissue like darts from a blowgun.

Take a bite out of some plants in this family, such as Dieffenbachia — an innocent-looking, common house and office plant — and you'll be struck painfully mute for as much as a day because of swelling and paralysis of the lips and tongue. It's no wonder: The enzymes at work are similar to a scorpion and snake venom, and the raphides that deliver it are crafted to punish, with grooves to drive deep into tissues and barbs to lodge there firmly as a porcupine quill.

It all adds up to whiz-bang protection from herbivores, who won't munch more than once on the succulent-looking leaves of skunk cabbage. As one of the first plants up in the spring, its tempting green leaves would otherwise be a sure snack.

The plant's stink comes from the same organic compounds produced by decomposing bacteria, including amines, amino acids and ammonia. The stench is another ingenious adaptation to the fact that skunk cabbage raises its head so early in the year, before pollinating bees are up and about.

There are advantages to being first: Trees and shrubs have yet to leaf out, so the skunk cabbage has the sun all to itself.

The bright yellow bloom of the spathe and flowers that pave the spadex, and index-finger-shaped stalk in the middle of the plant, attract pollinating flies.

The leaves keep their scent, even as spring warms to summer, and the leaves uncurl and expand to as much as five feet in length. The bulk and breadth of a single big plant could block a doorway.

As the leaves grow, they hide the yellow spathe that gives the plant its scientific name.

It combines the Greek words "lysis," meaning loosening, and "chiton," meaning tunic. Open on one side, the spathe encloses the erect white flower stalk like a tunic ruffled open by a spring breeze. The spathe eventually fades and falls, usually by the summer solstice, depending on elevation.

But even after its leaves die back in winter, skunk cabbage is still alive and growing: Its massive, contractile roots thrust and claw deep into the ground and store the sugars for next year's lush growth.

The flower spike, atop a stout stalk, is worth examining with a magnifying glass: It is covered with tiny white blossoms, each perfectly detailed.

The leaves are jacketed in cutin, a waxy substance that gives them a waterproof sheen.

Native Americans used the leaves for drinking cups, folding them and using the stem for a handle. They also made a handy sunshade, and were useful in all sorts of food preparation, explaining yet another name for this plant: Indian Wax Paper.

From lining berry baskets to wrapping food, lining cooking pits and as a makeshift plate, skunk cabbage was just the thing. The rhizomes, or root, were also dug and roasted, but this was early spring starvation food. Only bears are known to relish skunk cabbage.

Some sensitive souls have other, modern-day uses for skunk cabbage: Gretchen Lawlor, a self-proclaimed natural health educator in Seattle, recommends skunk cabbage for confronting "the great stuckness." Lawlor recommends diluted tonics of flower and plant essences, including skunk cabbage, to retune emotional and energetic vibes.

"It is a fabulous spring tonic," Lawlor said of skunk cabbage. "It steps forth out of the murk and muck and rot of the previous year, and really is helpful when you are blocked in an old mindset or attitude that is really not serving you.

"The rot is consuming you, and it is beginning to smell and ferment and preoccupy you so you are not able to see what around you is new and fresh." For her, the stink of skunk cabbage is a cognitive breath of fresh air.

To be fair, Lynn Havsall, director of the Camp Long nature center in Seattle, notes that skunk cabbage doesn't even smell like skunk unless its leaves are bruised. Kneeling deep to put her nose to a plant's white flower stalk, she gets a sweet floral — not skunky — whiff.

Denizens of the damp, skunk cabbage will never be found far from water. They thrive in sun but will tolerate shade.

Magenta salmonberry blooms, the delicate white pendant flowers of Indian Plum and pristine blossoms of trillium are its usual companions, each blooming just as skunk cabbage raises its brave yellow spathe as early as March.

Skunk cabbage can be quite long-lived perennials; a plant can thrive for decades if conditions are right. Abundant in swamps and wet woods at low- to mid- elevation in all of Western Washington, skunk cabbage spreads both by rhizomes and seeds.

It ranges from south central Alaska to Northern California and as far east as Idaho and Montana.

Havsall relates a legend of the Cathlamet people of Southwest Washington, who tell this story to explain why this plant is always found near water:

Before the time of the salmon, skunk cabbage was the only thing to eat. When the spring salmon finally arrived, they rewarded the skunk cabbage with an elk robe and a war club — that enveloping spathe and stout flower stalk. As a parting gift, the salmon placed skunk cabbage amid the music of the river — right along its soft, damp banks, where the soil was best.

Michelia figo || Banana Shrub or Port Wine Magnolia || 含笑花 (Ham Siu fa) or Smiling Flower

A month or so ago, as I was working in my parent's backyard on Fidalgo Island, I noticed a shrub-like tree covered with greenish gray furry pods. I took a series of photographs. I returned a couple of weeks later and found some just beginning to open, pushing purple lips up from the interior of the pods, and others, having shed their furry coats, wrapped in tightly wound purple and pink gowns of fleshlike petal. Of course, I took more photographs.

I return to Fidalgo Island soon and will check on their progress.

The man who owned the house previous to my parents planted a lot of unique trees and shrubs around the yard. My initial searches to identify the plant focuses on local and native databases and came to naught. Then, a few days ago, driving down an alley with Roger in his pick-up, he pointed out the same plant and told me, offhandedly, that it was a variety of magnolia. I replied that I had been lazily trying to identify the tree online and had not come up with anything.

So this morning, I made a more thorough search and found a substantial amount of information, which is noted below.

Of particular interest to me is that the plant is native to China and is called the Smiling Flower.

From Wikipedia: Magnolia:

Magnolia is an ancient genus. Having evolved before bees appeared, the flowers developed to encourage pollination by beetles. As a result, the carpels of Magnolia flowers are tough, to avoid damage by eating and crawling beetles. Fossilised specimens of M. acuminata have been found dating to 20 million years ago, and of plants identifiably belonging to the Magnoliaceae dating to 95 million years ago. Another primitive aspect of Magnolias is their lack of distinct sepals or petals.

By the end of the 18th century, botanists and plant hunters exploring Asia began to name and describe the Magnolia species from China and Japan. The first Asiatic species to be described by western botanists were Magnolia denudata and Magnolia liliiflora, and Magnolia coco and Magnolia figo.

From Wikipedia: Michelia figo:

The Banana Shrub or Port Wine Magnolia (Michelia figo) is an evergreen tree growing to 3-4 m tall. It is native to China.

Initially described as by Portuguese missionary and naturalist João de Loureiro as Liriodendron figo, it was reclassified as Michelia figo by German botanist Curt Polycarp Joachim Sprengel. In 2006, a cladistic analysis of the genus Michelia found them to lie within the genus Magnolia.

It is cultivated as an ornamental plant in gardens for its fragrant flowers. The leaves are leathery, dark glossy-green, to 10 cm long. The flowers are cream-white, purple rounded or light-purple; strongly scented. This plant is used in Shanghai, China, as a tall evergreen hedge. It grows to a large evergreen compact tree. It grows in acid and alkaline soil very well. Susceptible to black soot.

 

From Yang Mekar ditamanku: Pisang-pisang - Michelia figo (Lour.) Spreng.

Michelia figo (Lour.) Spreng. or also called Michelia fuscata (Andrews) Walls. is amongst the fragarant flowering plants I have in my garden. Everytime I water my plants in the vicinity of this plant I could pick up the fragrance of the flowers that are in buds. I have never seen them bloom except on very rare ocassion. SO this time around I was just mumbling to myself asking the plat why I only see the buds but never see the flower bloom. Viola!! The next morning seems like magic I get to see several of the buds blooming in great spendour releasing the fragrance contianed there in. It was really wonderful and today I have a few in full view. I remember the fragrance since my younger days. My mother had it growing in our family home and knowing I was a enthusiatice gardener she one day showed me this plant with flowers imparting the fragrance of banana. She aptly called it bunga pisang or banana flower. Sometimes she calls it pisang-pisang.

The fragrance is due to isobutyl acetate depicted below. This compound is a solvent used in pharmaceutical industries

This plant is native of Southern China and is distributed throughout East Asia. In China it is called 含笑花 (Ham Siu fa) or Smiling flower. It is the favorite of women in Hong Kong in the past where they place one or two flowers in their hair to impart the fragrance as they walk pass people. Today such natural fragrance has been replaced by artificial perfumeries.

It is basically planted as ornamentals for the fragrance it imparts. However, it have found some used in medicine where it is known to have a vasodilatory effects and has been advocated in the treatment of hypertension. It is also cardiotonic and thus used to strengthen the heart. The leaves are also used to make fragrant tea. In Indonesia it is used as a hair tonic to treat alopecia. The flower on the other hand is used to treat vertigo when 5 - 10 flowers is steep in hot water and the resulting tea is drank to relieve the vertigo.

From Repositorio de noções de botanica applicada e productos vegetaes mais by João Maria Antonio da Silva

MICHELIA FIGO, (Lour.).

"Leaves incurved, reflexed; flowers axillarv; calyx spathe-like; corolla of 6 petals. Shrub 4 feet, stem erect multi-branched. Leaves lanceolate, quite entire, incurved, reflexed, shining, alternate. Flowers axillary, pale, on the inside sprinkled with red markings, fragrant. Calyx-spathe single, obtuse, tomentose. Corolla petals 6, ovate-oblong, erect-concave. About 40 short filaments, inserted on the receptacle. Ovaries more than 40 imbricate attached at the apex of in elongated receptacle, equal to the corolla, at the base are the stamens. interrupted in the middle. Stigmata sessile. Seeds as many as the ovaries. At Macao called Fula figo. Habitat, cultivated at Macao and at Canton, China." Translated from the Latin description of Liriodendron figo of J. de Loureiro (8) p. 347.

This shrub which grows to 20 feet is much cultivated in S. E. China and is very popular with the Chinese on account of the fragrance of the flowers. This has been likened by some to the smell of pear-drops by others to that of ripe bananas. The young buds and twigs arc covered with a brown tomentum, the flowers are borne in the axils of leaves along the previous year's growth. Each flower is about 3/4 inch long, the petals are creamy yellow or brownish yellow edged with rose or violet. Women in Asia are fond of placing one or two flowers in their hair and flowers, sold for this purpose, may be purchased in the Hong Kong streets in late March and
April for a very modest sum.

From Flickr:

It grows to a large evergreen compact tree or shrub up to 4.5m in height and as wide, Magnolia figo , known as Michelia figo - the most commonly grown michelia in Australian gardens.

You can see the tiny cream, purple inside flowers what really resemble magnolia flowers, but much smaller, inconspicuous. They emit a heady, fruity scent rather like bananas or vintage port, and the fragrance is stronger at night.
The flowers are very rare open (inset)

Native to China. 

 From Desertscope: Michelia Figo

As far as I know, there are two verities of michelia figo, the regular michelia figo which has a banana scent and the ‘Port Wine’ which has a hint of spice scent. They looked almost identical with the exception that “Port Wine” has a purple ring around the edge of the petals. Both smell delicious. My parents bought a banana shrub over from the East Coast. It is already four feet tall and spans like a small tree. It is not really cold tolerant so my parents have been growing it in pot for years, moving indoor during cold winter days and outdoor during sunny days. When they moved here, they bought it with them. Once it became settled here, it started to form small brown hairy buds and soon yellow fragrant flowers opened one after another. Even with just one flower, the scent can perfume the air within the vicinity. I often find myself wondering at my parent’s back porch and fill my lungs with the sweet scent of the m. figo. For some reason, the fragrance reminds me of freshly cut cantaloupes, rather than of bananas. Even the contractors that my parents hired to do some construction often stop their work and came have a sniff of these creamy yellow flowers.

I have been trying very hard to obtain an m. figo myself. From an online store, I bought a michelia figo ‘Port Wine’. It came in one gallon size and looks pretty healthy. Just a few days after adjusting to the southwestern sun, I started to see new leaves emerging. However, it was not the same as the one my parents have. While shopping around for many online stores, to my amazement, one day while I was at Lowe’s in El Paso, I came across a group of banana shrubs for sale. They were each of a gallon size and I couldn’t believe how cheap they come (it was about seven dollars a plant). For that, I grabbed a few of them and went home. Now they are happily sitting on my porch. There are small fuzzy buds on some branches. I can’t wait to see them flowering.

Updated Photos from Late March:

Rosario Beach: Webbed roots hold the splintered earth together

The Refuge at Rosario

Rosario was one of the first places I was taken to on Fidalgo Island. Every year, before I moved up here, I always made sure to take a walk around Rosario. Out on Rosario Head, standing just above the cliffs, looking out towards Desolation Island, is one of my top ten places to be in Washington.

As you walk into the part there are well tended grounds with scattered picnic areas and beautifully designed log cabin style refuges. Most of the refuges and small cabins were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps.

From Wikipedia:

Modeled after precedent employment-conservation programs in the United States and Europe, FDR introduced the idea for the program with his first inaugural address on 21 March 1933:

“ ...The propose for me to create a civilian conservation corps to be used in simple work, not interfering with normal employment, and confining itself to forestry, the prevention of soil erosion, flood control, and similar projects. I call your attention to the fact that this type of work is of definite practical value, not only through the prevention of great present financial loss but also a means of creation future national wealth...

[...] The CCC performed 300 possible types of work projects within ten approved general classifications: 1) Structural Improvements: bridges, fire lookout towers, service buildings; 2) Transportation: truck trails, minor roads, foot trails and airport landing fields; 3) Erosion Control: check dams, terracing and vegetable covering; 4) Flood Control: irrigation, drainage, dams, ditching, channel work, riprapping; 5) Forest Culture: planting trees and shrubs, timber stand improvement, seed collection, nursery work; 6) Forest Protection: fire prevention, fire pre-suppression, fire fighting, insect and disease control; 7) Landscape and Recreation: public camp and picnic ground development, lake and pond site clearing and development; 8) Range: stock driveways, elimination of predatory animals; 9) Wildlife: stream improvement, fish stocking, food and cover planting; 10) Miscellaneous: emergency work, surveys, mosquito control.

The responses to this six month experimental conservation program were enthusiastic, and on 1 October 1933 Director Fechner was instructed arrange for a second period of enrollment. By January 1934, the second year of the CCC program, 300,000 men were enrolled. In July 1934 this cap was increased by 50,000 to include men from drought affected states of the mid-west. The temporary tent camps had also transitioned from tents to wooden barracks. An education program had been established emphasizing job training and literacy.

As is typical of all CCC structures, they were built to stand for many, many decades. They all embody a sturdy, practical, even healthy, aesthetic of shelter. Constructed from local stones and trees, they echo and honor that natural world around them. If I were to ever build a house, I would try to construct it as close to the style of a CCC building as possible.

The Island or Rosario Head

Just past the the buildings it a narrow stretch of land that leads to Rosario Head. Just beyond a small woods, you climb up to a windswept plateau overlooking Puget Sound. Deception Island rests nearby. There are a few windswept trees up there, one of which I must have photographed over a hundred times and can never quite get what I am looking for. It's just one of this images that is too much for a camera.

The Tree

From the Washington State Parks site:

The human history of the park dates back thousands of years, when the first people settled in the areas now known as Cornet Bay, Bowman Bay and Rosario. Eventually, the land was settled by the Samish and the Swinomish. They lived on the land until the early 1900s.

During his Northwest coastal explorations, Captain George Vancouver became the first European to identify the area near Whidbey Island as a passage, which he named "Deception Pass." A 1925 act of Congress designated the property for public recreation purposes. In the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built roads, trails, buildings and bridges to develop the park.

Fallen Madrona Tree (Arbutus)

From Wikipedia:

According to the Straits Salish, an anthropogenic form of pitch would go fishing, but return to shore before it got too hot. One day he was too late getting back to shore and melted from the heat and several anthropogenic trees rushed to get him - the first was Douglas Fir, who took most of the pitch, the Grand Fir received a small portion, and the Madrone received none - which is why they say it still has no pitch.

Also, according to the Great Flood legends of several tribes in the northwest, the madrona helped people survive by providing an anchor on top of a mountain. Because of this the Saanich people do not burn madrona out of thanks for saving them.

From Coast Botanical Garden:

Father Juan Crespi, chronicler of a Spanish expedition to Monterey Bay in California, named this species "madroño" in 1769, after its resemblance to the Mediterranean madroño or strawberry tree. (Arbutus is Latin for strawberry tree.) Archibald Menzies, naturalist on Captain Vancouver's 1792 voyage to the Pacific Northwest, made the first botanical description. In his honour, the tree was given the scientific name Arbutus menziesii. [...]

Aboriginal people revere arbutus. In their fine guide, Plants of Coastal British Columbia, Jim Pojar and Andy MacKinnon tell us the Saanich used its bark and leaves as cold and stomach remedies, in a tuberculosis medicine and for contraception. The bark was also used to colour food. According to a Straits Salish legend, the survivors of a great flood tied their canoe to an arbutus atop Mount Newton near Sidney. To this day, as a mark of gratitude, the Saanich do not use arbutus as firewood. Victoria poet Richard Olafson's In Arbutus Light refers to another native legend, where the tree's "webbed roots hold the splintered earth together." If the arbutus should disappear, the myth warns-whether from fungal infection, habitat loss or some other cause- the planet would fly apart and be utterly destroyed.

TheTotem Pole | The Maiden of Deception Pass

From the Pacific Science Center: Reprinted from Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest page 199 by Ella E. Clark 1953

Deception Pass is a narrow, high-walled gorge between Whidbey and Fidalgo islands in the Puget Sound. It was named by Captain George Vancouver in 1792 when he learned that it did not lead to a closed harbor. The tidewater rushing through the channel makes navigation difficult even for motor boats today.

The story of the maiden of Deception Pass is represented on the Samish side of the base of the totem pole on the Swinomish Reservation. Alexis Edge, one of the carvers of the pole, said (in 1952) that the Indians who once lived on the islands had no trouble bucking the swift current if they would think about the maiden; if they did not keep their minds on her, their canoes would get caught in the whirlpool and they would sink. Sometimes they saw the girl come up from the water; with her hands on her hips she would wade around in the current behind the canoes.

In the days that are gone, the Samish Indians lived near the narrow channel now called Deception Pass. Most of their food came from the sea, where they usually found plenty of clams, crabs, mussels, and salmon.

One day, a group of maidens was on the beach gathering some-of the shellfish. In the group was a very pretty girl. Once, a clam she had in her hand slipped from her grasp, and she followed it into the water. Again and again it slipped from her, and she went out farther and farther until she was in water up to her waist.

Then she realized that a hand was grasping her hand. When she screamed with fright, a voice coming from the water said softly, "Do not be afraid. I will not harm you. I only want to look at your beauty."

Soon the speaker let go her hand, and she went back to her home. Again and again she had the same experience. She would be drawn into the water, a hand she could not see would hold her hand, and a voice would say loving things to her. The voice told her about the beautiful world at the bottom of the sea, about the beautiful plants and the colored fishes which she could never see from the earth. Each time, the hand held hers a little longer, and the voice spoke to her a little longer.

One day a young man rose from the water. He went with her and asked her father if he might marry her.

"Oh, no," said the father. "My daughter cannot live in the sea."

The young man told the girl's father about the beautiful world at the bottom of the ocean, but the father would not say yes.

"You will be sorry," warned the young man. "If your daughter cannot be my wife, I will see to it that you and your people cannot get sea food. Then you will be very hungry."
Still the father would not let his daughter marry the young man.

In a short time, shellfish became scarce. Then salmon became scarce. Then the streams flowing into the salt sea dried up, and the people could get no fresh-water fish. Soon the springs dried up, and the people had no water to drink.

Then the maiden went to the beach and out into the water. There she called to the young man. "Let my people have some food," she begged. "And let them have water to drink."

"Not until your father will let you marry me," replied the young man of the sea. "Not until you are my wife will there be plenty of food in the waters again."

So to keep his people from dying of hunger and thirst, her father at last gave in. He asked one thing of the young man from the sea: "Let my daughter return to us once each year. Let us see that she is happy with you."

The young man was willing to do as the father asked, and so the maiden walked out into the bay. The people on the beach watched until she disappeared from sight. The last they saw of her was her long hair floating on the surface of the water.

Soon water returned to the streams. The shellfish and the salmon returned to the sea. The Samish people were well fed. True to his promise the man of the sea let his wife go back each year to visit her people. Four years she came. And before each visit, the fish were more plentiful than ever before.

Each time, the people saw a change in her. First they noticed that barnacles were growing on her hands, then on her arms. On her fourth visit, they saw that barnacles had begun to grow on one side of her beautiful face, and that she seemed unhappy when she was out of the water. A chill wind came from her whenever she walked among them.

The people talked among themselves and then gently said to her, "We release your husband from his promise. If it makes you unhappy to leave the sea, you need not visit us each year. Do not come unless you wish to come."

And so the woman did not come again from the water. But always she was the guardian of her people. Because of her they always had plenty of seafood and plenty of pure water in the springs and streams. Her people could see that she was watching over them. As the tide passed back and forth through Deception Pass, they could see her long hair drifting on the surface of the water. They knew that the maiden of the sea was watching over her people.

The Beach