skunk cabbage

:  any of several early-blooming perennial herbs of the arum family that occur in shaded, wet to swampy areas and have a fetid odor suggestive of a skunk:a :  one (Symplocarpus foetidus) of eastern North America and eastern Asia that has a hoodlike, brownish-purple spatheb :  one (Lysichiton americanus synonym L. americanum) chiefly of the Pacific coast region of North America that has a large yellow spathec :  one (Lysichiton camtschatcensis synonym L. camtschatcense) of eastern Asia that has a large white spathe