Ah, the sweet scent of flowers in the spring. Or not. Because, it turns out, April showers bring some reeky blooms to cottage country. In an effort to attract specific pollinators, certain plants stink like some of the grossest things that the human nose can smell: garbage, feces, rotting carcasses…all disgusting. But not if you’re a fly or a beetle.
They are family
We all know that bees are the champion pollinators. But they’re not the only bugs with this job. Flies, beetles, and gnats also pollinate plants that have evolved to attract them. Canada’s eastern and western skunk cabbage, for example, bloom as early as late February. It’s a time when native bees, along with butterflies—another common pollinator—aren’t active. But certain flies and beetles, species that are attracted to strong, smelly scents, are already up and about. So it benefits the skunk cabbage to smell stinky when it blooms; it’s the only way it can get an insect to stop by, become covered in pollen, and then spread that pollen to another flower, therefore helping the plant reproduce. The white trillium’s less famous cousin, the red trillium (pictured), blooms in May, when plenty of bugs are around, but it doesn’t produce any nectar to entice those insects. It smells like rotting meat, which lures green carrion flies (they breed on animal carcasses) to visit. This form of trickery is called “deceptive pollination:” the plant is mimicking something that the insect wants, but there’s no actual reward for the insect, only for the plant.
7 poisonous plants to watch out for in Ontario
They’ve got the look
To keep up the ruse (“Hey, bug! I’m poop! I’m a dead animal! You want to eat me or lay eggs on me!”), many reeky plants have an appearance that matches their smell. Red trilliums are raw-meat red, while B.C.’s kamchatka lily has dark purple-to-brown flowers to match its stench: dirty diapers. Or to match the contents of a pit privy; one of this flower’s nicknames is the “outhouse lily.” That said, a stinky plant’s smell doesn’t always correspond with the colour of its flowers, at least not to us. Western skunk cabbage has yellow flowers (it looks nothing like a skunk, or even like carrion). And what exactly is the invasive Bradford pear tree trying to mimic? It has white blossoms and, according to reports, smells like ammonia—which is colourless—or rotting fish, which come in a range of colours. (Then again, according to some people, its flowers smell like semen.)
Know when to hold ’em
Once a reeky plant has lured in its bug pollinator, it has a problem to overcome: flies and beetles aren’t fuzzy like bees, which means that their bodies don’t pick up pollen as easily. So, the plant needs to do something to keep the insect there longer. The Dutchman’s pipe can trap gnats and flies in its pipe-shaped flower. Stiff hairs inside this chamber temporarily hold the bugs inside; after a couple of days, the flower wilts a little, the hairs soften, and the bugs can get out—now covered in pollen (or, having left pollen behind, because they’ve come from another Dutchman’s pipe plant). The bug-trapping Jack-in-the-pulpit doesn’t rank as high on the reek-o-metre—it smells faintly like mushrooms. But the stench draws in fungus gnats. Once they fly into the plant’s slippery, narrow spathe—a tube-like structure that houses the flowers—they’re forced down to the bottom, and can’t fly back out. Gnats that fly into male plants will eventually discover a tiny opening at the bottom of the spathe, and crawl out, now covered in pollen. If that gnat, apparently not having learned its lesson, then flies into a female Jack-in-the-pulpit, it’s doomed. A female Jack has no opening to crawl out of, so, trapped forever, the bug dies. But it’s a win for the plant. It’s been pollinated.
Meat some of Canada’s carnivorous plants
This article was originally published in the Spring 2026 issue of Cottage Life.
Related Story Nature Scrapbook: Spring beauty
Related Story Nature Scrapbook: Fireberry hawthorn
Related Story Cottage Q&A: What can we plant on our sloped septic field?