With temperatures in the teens well after the vernal equinox, the most prosaic sings of early spring have made me almost giddy.  The snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) in my back yard had a hard time pushing through the icy crust that remained from February’s indignities, but once we got some melting, they came back.

 

 

Skunk cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus, is a rare thermogenic plant, so it is not entirely subject to the vicissitudes of the weather.  Folks say it can heat itself as much as 35˚C above the backround temperature; I have not yet tested this myself, but I’m trying to figure out an elegant way to verify it (hip waders and an anal thermometer?).  In any event, here’s one of the first blooms I found this year, in Allandale Woods.