skunk cabbage
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About Our Definitions: All forms of a word (noun, verb, etc.) are now displayed on one page.skunk cabbage
nounDefinition of SKUNK CABBAGE
: either of two North American perennial herbs of the arum family that occur in shaded wet to swampy areas and have a fetid odor suggestive of a skunk: a : one (Symplocarpus foetidus) of eastern North America that sends up in spring a cowl-shaped brownish-purple spathe b : one (Lysichiton americanus) chiefly of the Pacific coast region that has a large yellow spathe
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First Known Use of SKUNK CABBAGE
1751
skunk cabbage
noun (Concise Encyclopedia)Any of three species of plants that grow in temperate bogs and meadows, emitting unpleasant odours as they grow. The eastern North American skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus, of the arum family) has large fleshy leaves, purple-brown spathes, and a skunklike odour. The western, or yellow, skunk cabbage (Lysichiton americanum), also an arum, bears a large yellow spathe and is found from California to Alaska and eastward to Montana. The third species, Veratrum californicum, is the poisonous corn lily, or false hellebore, of the lily family, which grows from New Mexico and Baja California northward to Washington State.
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