jack-in-the-pulpit

Native Shrubs Offer Blossoms, Month by Month

Skunk cabbage emerges very early.

Who'd have thought the growing season, and pollinator season, of southern New England starts this early? But it does.

First, there's 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. 

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