Virginia Native Plant Society Plant of the Year

Posted by Georgene A. Bramlage Mar 6, 2009

The Virginia Native Plant Society Plant (VNPS) Wildflower of the Year for 2009 is the Eastern Skunk Cabbage. The Wildflower of the Year for 2008 was the Virginia Spiderwort.

Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) is an early blooming native plant at home in bog and water gardens. Virginia spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana) is a long-blooming herbaceous perennial for native plant gardens. Both are among my favorite wildflowers because they are seemingly simple, but in reality are complex. Both are fascinating and fun to obaserve.

Skunk cabbage is reproductively intricate and physiologically complex. Its simple flowers are embedded in an inflorescence (spathe and spadix) which is over millions of years old. If wet knees aren't a problem, the reproductive cycle of skunk cabbage makes a fascinating early spring and summer show. The plants, particularly the flowers and inflorescence, are among members of the Arum plant family that are thermogenic. They are capable of producing their own heat which allows them to emerge from freezing muck through snow and ice in early spring.

Virginia spiderwort flowers exist only for one day but there are plenty of flower buds standing in line waiting in the inflorescence to open. The inflorescence is surrounded by seemingly simple cup-like leaves that are really bracts. The Virginia spiderwort is the most common in nature and also the one most available as cultivars (cultivated variety) like my favorite deep-blue flowered and yellow-leaved 'Sweet Kate.'