foul-smelling plants

Stinking Hellebore

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Not everyone gets excited about an evergreen, perennial plant with pale green flowers and a questionable fragrance.  Still, times being what they are, anything that is alive, blooming and not related to politics is a cause for celebration.  That is why I am so delighted to see the “stinking hellebore” or Helleborus foetidus preparing to … Read more

Skunk Cabbage

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If Eastern skunk cabbage—Symplocarpus foetidus—were a person, you would avoid him.  Inactive for part of the year, skunk cabbage comes alive in late winter.  It never looks terribly attractive and most of the time it smells awful enough to justify one of its nicknames, “polecat weed.”  People and even animals tend to avoid the plant … Read more