American Skunk Cabbage

This plant is called American Skunk Cabbage and it is starting to flower. The flowers have a very strong smell of something dead or rotting hence the name skunk cabbage. We have a lot of this plant at Fleet Pond in Brookly wood. It is an invasive plant, with its very large leaves and rapid rate of spread, it can out-compete native plants and cause extensive damage locally. Given the popularity of this plant in gardens and its continued introduction into the wild, it is likely to increase.