White Skunk Cabbage

Lysichiton camtschatcensis, common name Asian skunk cabbage, white skunk cabbage, Far Eastern swamp lantern or Japanese swamp lantern, is a plant found in swamps and wet woods, along streams and in other wet areas of the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Kuril Islands, Sakhalin and northern Japan. The common name "skunk cabbage" is used for the genus Lysichiton, which includes L. americanus, the western skunk cabbage, noted for its unpleasant smell. The Asian skunk cabbage is more variable: plants have been reported in different cases to smell disgusting, not at all, and sweet. In Japanese it is known as mizubashō (lit. "water-banana") from a supposed similarity to the Japanese banana, a name with poetic rather than malodorous associations. It is not closely related to the true cabbage.