Know Your Fauna

 Over night, really, as in was not there yesterday the 

MAY APPLES

 popped out, now it's still April and there are no apples, but here they are!

 Podophyllum peltatum, commonly called Mayapple, or May Apple,^[1] (or hogapple, Indian apple, mayflower, umbrella plant, wild lemon (flavor of the fruit), wild mandrake, American mandrake (shape of rhizomes) or "devil's apple" (used for Solanum linnaeanum elsewhere)), is a herbaceous perennial plant in the family Berberidaceae, native to deciduous forests in of eastern North America.^[2] Like many other spring ephemerals, it emerges from below ground before the canopy of the forest opens, and then slowly withers later in the summer; the foliage is, however, somewhat more long-lived than other spring emphemerals such as Trillium.

The stems grow to 30–40 cm tall, with 2 or occasionally 3 palmately lobed leaves up to 20–30 cm diameter with 5-9 deeply cut lobes on reproductive individuals, or one peltate (umbrella-like) leaf on sterile individuals. The singlesecund white flower 3–5 cm diameter, with six (rarely up to nine) petals, is produced at the axil of the two leaves (the upper two in a three-leaved plant); the flower matures into a yellow-greenish fruit 2–5 cm long.^[3] The plant is widespread and appears in clonal colonies in open mesic woodlands. Individual shoots are often connected by systems of thick rhizomes.^[1] As with many kinds of wild plants, the flower provides sexual reproduction while the rhizome provides asexual reproduction.^[4] The former provides long distance dispersal, while the latter allows the formation of dense circular clones. There are costs to producing flowers, since the production of a flower and fruit reduces the probability that the plant will survive, or flower, in following years.^[5]

Many species of plants have mycorrhizae to assist with nutrient uptake in infertile conditions.^[4] Mayapple plants are considered obligately dependent upon such mycorrhizae, although it may also be facultatively dependent upon rhizome age and soil nutrient levels.^[6] Plants are commonly found infected by the rust Puccinia podophylli, appearing as honeycomb-patterned orange colonies under the leaves, and yellowish lesions on the upper surface.^[7]

Though the common name is mayapple,^[8] it is the flower that appears in early May, not the "apple". The fruit or "apple" is produced early summer and ripens later in summer.

AND

 THE SKUNK CABBAGE IS HERE !

Eastern Skunk Cabbage, Clumpfoot Cabbage, Foetid Pothos, Meadow Cabbage, Polecat Weed, Skunk Cabbage, or Swamp Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), commonly known as simply Skunk Cabbage, is a low growing, foul smelling plant that prefers wetlands. Native to eastern North America, it ranges from Nova Scotia and southern Quebec west to Minnesota, and south to North Carolina and Tennessee. It is protected as endangered in Tennessee.^[1]

 Koda in the skunk cabbage.