The first bloom of the year is here, even if it’s buried in snow

The first bloom of the year is here, even if it’s buried in snow

For those slogging through one of the harshest winters in recent memory, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. The first wildflower of the year is already blooming — even if it is still covered in snow. The spiky shoots of the eastern skunk cabbage poke through the mud in mid-January, months before other plants begin to wake up. Capable of generating its own heat, skunk cabbage produces one of the oddest flowers in the woods. Tiny and petal-…