Friday, March 26, 2010

Oxalate Crystal

Ok. I had to know. What is an oxalate crystal? Why do these two words show up in every discussion of skunk cabbage. What they do is successfully produce a nasty sour taste as well as poisonous condition  in the herbivore's mouth- large deer, or small rabbit, for instance, looking for a green salad after a very icy winter. The oxalate crystals make the muncher's mouth burn fiercely and swell. So it is understandable that any animal who lunches on skunk cabbage will feel the mouth pain before supper. But that's not all.  These raphids, or crystals, are made up of calcium.  Most undesirable is  the oxalate, a  poisonous, crystalline  acid that produces this sour taste  and causes the burning, swelling and choking.  Some scientists suggest that this is the way woody plants get rid of the much needed calcium they must absorb  for growth.  Rhubarb and spinach are two common edible plants that have a significant amount of oxalate crystals. Interestingly, humans who suffer with kidney stones, or oxalate crystals that are excreted painfully in the urine, also are advised to eat a low oxalate diet.

The American Indian And Skunk Cabbage

Now that you know skunk cabbage can warm itself similar to a warm-blooded mammal, you might wonder if it serves any other function. The American Indians certainly thought so. They harvested  the root in the fall to make a tea for  relieving  a cough, toothache, asthma or seizures. Unlike the leaves, the root does not produce the intense burning from the long oxalate crystals.(There is much more to learn about these crystals. Skunk cabbage uses them successfully as a protection against hungry animals looking for some vegetation after a winter of ice and snow. But oxalate crystals are all around us-even in us. This is a great example of the value of research-it just goes one and on to whet your curiosity and exercise your brain at any age.) The resourceful Indians  would also inhale the plant's  fumes to bring on intense sweating which, in turn, acted like an expectorant to cough up phelgm. Inhaling these crushed leaves also  relieved headaches.  One can just imagine that that the odor was so intense, the victim forgot about his headache! However, the plant is said to have a narcotic affect. Perhaps the serotonin in the plant's oil encourages a feeling of well-being. Crushed soft leaves also provided a poultice for swelling. Besides these medicinal uses, the American Indians used this plant for seasoning, a liner for a cooking pot, a food to fight famine at the end of a long brown winter, and as a drinking cup. Can you imagine why skunk cabbage served these needs? Discovering the answers will encourage your young friend and you to imagine and reason while on your skunk cabbage adventure.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Skunk Cabbage Can Generate Its Own Heat


If you time your skunk cabbage adventure just right, you can warm your finger inside  the teardrop shaped plant.  How does the skunk cabbage do this?  Just like those insulated gloves that keep your fingers warm on the coldest winter day, the hood, or spiral leaf that curls around itself, keeps the air space inside the hood that protects the spadix warm.  Keep an eye of the temperature, however. Skunk cabbage can turn off their heat if the temperature drops below freezing. Since they can't compete with this degree of cold, they do not try.  But when the air is above 32 degrees, the spadix, or the spike-like bud that is covered with fuzzy flowers that never bloom,  can produce a temperature of 70 degrees by drawing on the starches in the roots.
Read More About It!
Skunk Cabbage, Sundew Plants and Strangler Figs: And 18 More of the Strangest Plants on Earth by Sally Kneidel
Did You Know? Skunk cabbage can have roots as long as a foot and live for a hundred years? You may be smelling the same plant that the American Indians used for soups, stews and medicine. Or that  young, mischevious  tribesman may have kicked the same plant you did while running through the stream to spread its smelly odor. 


A Bird? An Animal? Or Skunk Cabbage?

Why should children learn to identify skunk cabbage? If you take a young person on a walk while there is still ice coating streams and trees waiting for their tender buds and brown of last years fallen  leaves , the pointed maroon hoods poking through the frozen ground around a bog tell you and your young  friend that  Nature is  getting ready for the changing season from winter to spring. As much fun as sledding and snowballs can be there is an excitement to see this new growth; so tender yet capable of poking through the frozen ground. Just how the skunk cabbage manages this is an amazing story about how it produces heat as it grows. Roger Knutson discovered that the pointed, somewhat curved leaf breaking through the icy ground produces a warmth just like birds and animals. Look carefully at the spiraled hood and you will see a pool of melting ice. The first bees and insects of warmer weather may be enjoying this unique warmth too. The Northeast Native Americans associated this rebirth in February or March, before any other plants poked through the ice and snow, as the cycle of life.

Bring Children Back To Nature Flower By Flower

Bring children back to nature: flower by flower; bird by bird, tree hallow by tree hallow. Curious By Nature  will be explore wildflowers, birds, and many other unique natural wonders one by one.  Just as knowing the name of a person connects you to that person, a child who  knows the name of a wildflower or bird will appreciate its importance and want to preserve it. To begin this adventure,  I will follow Frederic William Stack's book, Wildflowers Every Child Should Know published by Doubleday, Page & Company in 1909. Stack organizes his book according to color. I would like to explore each species by season. So check back for the first amazing wildflower that every child will remember by its smell, if  not its other characteristics. That's right. It is one of earliest plants to appear in New England.  By January or February you should be able to find this  Skunk Cabbage popping up in a still very cold bog along the side of a country road.  I'll be back with my own photo and more interesting facts about this member of the lilly family. Join me for this new adventure, flower by flower, bird by bird.