Eastern Skunk Cabbage

With a name like Eastern Skunk Cabbage, you dont need to take a whiff of this flower to know that it smells like. The plant, which grows in the moist wetland soils of eastern North America, emits a skunk like stench that flies and stoneflies find irresistible. The skunk cabbage consists of a mottled maroon modified leaf resembling a hood, called a spathe, as well as a yellow, cylindrical spadix, which bears several tiny flowers. The Eastern Skunk Cabbage can actually generate its own heat, raising its temperature above that of the surrounding air an ability found mostly in warm blooded animals. The plant produces heat as a secondary process of the set of reactions and pathways used to convert sugars produced during photosynthesis into energy. Heat is generated in parts of the plants cells called the mitochondria.