Japanese name: ザゼンソウ（座禅草） Scientific name:Symplocarpus renifolius
[Overview]
A perennial up to 40 cm tall, common in the north, found in sunny marshes and wet forests.
The whole plant has a foul smell.
It has a thick, short rhizome.
The leaves are small at flowering, but after flowering they grow into rounded heart shapes about 40 cm in both length and width, with long stalks.
Around the time the snow melts, it sends up a flower stalk 10–20 cm tall, wrapped in a purplish brown to dull green spathe and bearing an elliptic spadix 2 cm long.
The spathe grows to 20 cm long and 15 cm across; it is boat-shaped, very thick and fleshy, and pointed at the tip, which curves inward.
The flowers are small, pale green, with 4 petals, and are borne in large numbers on the surface of the spadix.
The infructescence is spherical, with the seeds embedded in a spongy axis; when ripe, the infructescence lies on the ground and the axis breaks down, scattering the seeds.
[Notes]
The Japanese name compares the shape of the inflorescence wrapped in the spathe to a monk sitting in zazen meditation.
