What's one of the very earliest native plants to emerge in southern New England? You guessed it. That funky swamp-life called skunk cabbage. The odiferous blossoms smell mighty good to particular flies and beetles. Those flies offer something to the skunk cabbage, too--pollination.
A mourning cloak butterfly flies on March 21. Early-blooming red maples provide it with nectar.
Jack-in-the-pulpit appears in late March, attracting its own pollinators--fungus gnats.