Skunk Cabbage or Swamp Lantern

Quinault - tsule´los, “digging the roots”     
Quileute - t’o´qwa, “it smells”

Family:  Arum (Araceae)
Genus: Lysichiton
Species: americanus

Botanical Description:  Odiferous perennial, height to 150 cm.  Large elliptical to lance-shaped leaves, net-veined, thin, tapering to short stout stalks up to 1.5 m long by .5 m wide.  Numerous green-yellow flowers on thick fleshy spike, hooded by large bright-yellow bract. Prefers low to medium elevations, wet meadows, forests, swamps & seepage areas.

Ethnographic Information: Cooked roots & lower stalk eaten by many tribes. Skokomish steamed the young leaves for eating. Steamed or roasted in times of spring famine. Leaves used for wrapping, drying salal & elder berries. Leaves used to line baskets berry-drying racks & steam pits. Leaves, roots, blossoms used in various  medicinal preparation.