Yellow Lanterns Welcoming Spring

*A magnificent plant called yellow lantern is flowering along the west coast. It’s a vibrant vernal beauty.

These western inhabitants thrive in rich mucky, wet swamps near red alders, Sitka spruce, western redcedars and grand firs.

Yellow Lanterns
It’s exhilarating to see these bursting Sitka oxygen-makers. Image credit: Reese Halter

Yellow lantern is a member of the arum family. It has large upright green leaves with a bright green, erect column, about nine inches high, surrounded by a gorgeous sunshine-yellow sheath.

Yellow Lanterns
The hovering thrum of beautiful yellow-faced bumblebees are also harbingers of the pageantry of spring.
Image credit: Reese Halter

Some flowers in the plant kingdom are remarkably fragrant. Others are fetid. What’s so important about how a flower smells? Scent determines which insects pollinate it. Sweet smelling flowers attract bees, hoverflies, wasps, hornets, moths, bats and butterflies. Foul smelling flowers, on the other hand, mimic carrion, which entice pollinators such as flies and some beetles.

Yellow Lanterns
A delightful blush of color adorning the floor of Nature’s hallowed cathedrals. Image credit: GarendersHQ

Yellow lantern is sometimes called skunk cabbage because its flowers release sulfur-containing chemicals called thiols that vaguely resemble the odor of a skunk.

The yellow lantern’s principal pollinators are the rove beetles. These voracious pollinators gorge on plentiful floral pollen. Some pollen grains escape consumption by clinging onto the exterior of the beetles, and when the roves brush against a new flower, they inadvertently act as cross-pollinators.

Yellow Lanterns
Caption: Douglas and other squirrels rely upon yellow lantern berries as a nutritious seasonal food source. Image credit: Reese Halter

After feasting and before leaving these well endowed flowers, some roves indulge in mating.

Yellow lantern roots provide important spring sustenance for ravenous black and grizzly bears newly emerged from months of winter hibernation.

The west coast Indigenous peoples eat steamed parts of yellow lantern, but only sparingly. These conspicuous maritimers contain calcium oxalate, which has sharp crystals that cause irritation along with burning sensations. Yellow lantern leaves are used as a ‘wax paper’ for lining berry baskets and steaming pits.

Yellow Lanterns
Have you relished your two-hour Nature fix this week? Image credit: Reese Halter

The sight of this dazzling yellow lantern-like plant makes it official: spring has sprung from Alaska to California. Happy Dance!

#LoveNature

#GenZEmergency

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Dr. Reese Halter

Dr Reese Halter is an award-winning broadcaster, distinguished conservation biologist and author.

Dr Reese Halter’s upcoming book is
GenZ Emergency

Tweet @RelentlessReese

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Previous Story

COVID-19: The Clear and Present Threat to Military Families During This Crisis is Not the Virus

Next Story

Trump Derangement Syndrome & COVID-19

Latest from The Life Slant

DRAX, Cali Big Tree Annihilators

DRAX United Kingdom,Subsidised Mother Earth destroyer,Complicit bedpartnerGolden State Natural Resources,Marvellous Californian old-growthInto one million wood pellet

Fantastic February

Buds breaking,Unhurried unpacking,Potent phytoncides,Glorious grandness,Joyous jubilation!

Atlantic Rainforest #SOS

South America’s other species-rich tropical assemblage, the Atlantic Rainforest, is in dire shape. This priceless hotbed of