Another similar species, also having a yellow standard and white wings and keel, is H. Torreyi, Gray. This is more or less silky pubescent; its wings are not spreading, its leaflets are narrower, and the bract of the umbel is sessile. This is found along shaded stream-banks both in the higher Coast Ranges and in the Sierras, and blooms in summer.
H. gracilis, Benth., with the standard yellow and the widespreading wings and shorter keel of rose-color, occurs in moist meadows along the coast from Monterey to the Columbia. It blooms by the middle of April.
H. crassifolia, Benth., a very large species, two or three feet high, with greenish-yellow or purplish flowers, is abundant in the Yosemite Valley about the borders of meadows. It is also common in the foothill region.
SKUNK-CABBAGE.
Lysichiton Camtschatcensis, Schott. Arum Family.
Rootstock.—Thick; horizontal. Leaves.—All radical; oblong-lanceolate; acute; one to three feet or more long; three to ten inches broad; narrowed to a short petiole or sessile. Flowers.—Small, crowded on a spadix, at the summit of a stout peduncle becoming six to twelve inches long. Spadix.—With an erect, spoon-shaped spathe, one and one-half to two feet long; bright yellow. Perianth.—Four-lobed. Stamens.—Four. Filaments short, flat. Ovary.—Conical; two-celled. Stigma depressed. Fruit.—Fleshy, coalescent and sunk in the rachis. Hab.—Peat bogs; from Mendocino County northward to Alaska; also, perhaps, in the Rocky Mountains.
In our northwestern counties, before the frost is entirely out of the ground, the leaves of the skunk-cabbage may be seen pushing their way up through the standing water of marshy localities. They soon attain a great size, and resemble the leaves of the banana-tree. They are of a rich velvet-green, slightly mottled, and are said to rival some of the tropical productions of our greenhouses.
There seems to be a difference of opinion as to the disagreeableness of these leaves. I suspect the odor lies mostly in the slimy, soapy sap, and is not very noticeable if they are not bruised or cut.
When the plants are in bloom, in May and June, they are very handsome, the large spoon-shaped, golden spathes being conspicuous at some distance. As this spathe withers away, the flower-stalk continues to grow, and its little greenish-yellow blossoms become brown.