protogynous, the pistils, which are the female reproductive components, reach sexual maturity before the male parts do (stamens). The flowers are inconspicuously crowded on the spadix. The spathes acts as the conspicuous portion of the plant. The inflorescence differs in size and the amount of flowers they contain. Due mostly to the crowding effect, the flowers do not show three (or its multiple) floral parts, as should be expected for monocots, but four perianth parts. These look almost cuboidal in shape and overlap each other to make a box-like arrangement. In opposition to the components of the perianth are the stamens. The two-celled anthers are extrorse and move rather flexibly. Because the blooms are protandrous, the anthers grow before the pistil. The pistil's overall structural shape is distinctive: The style is cuboidal, the ovary is one cell, and the stigma has three lobes. The leafage consists of two whitish sheathing leaves, and they have parallel veins, which is characteristic of monocots. The true leaves are rolled within the hard-coiled center. When the tips have pierced the encasing sheath-like leaves, they are typically tinted purplish like the plant's spathe. The first and even second leaves' tips may have this hue on the exterior. These inner, or true, leaves appear to diverge from monocotyledonous plants and lean more toward the dicotyledonous plants' netted veining. The unfolding of the first three leaves reveals a progressive shift toward the later leaves' netted veining. The veining is palmately netted in every instance. The leaves have fairly big air spaces and loosely packed cellular structures under a microscope. There are several rhaphides present in the leaf's enormous bundle masses. There are a number of other crystal forms, some of which are cuboidal in shape and even some of which are spherical. Symplocarpus foetidus reproduce by hard, pea-sized seeds which, when fully grown, drop onto the slimy substrate after developing inside the spadix. Birds, small animals, and floods can then spread the seeds. Distribution and habitat The native region of the Eastern skunk cabbage is eastern North America. Its geographic range includes eastern Canada, the northeastern United States, and the states of Tennessee and North Carolina in the southeast and Minnesota in the west. In Canada, the plant's distribution ranges from western Nova Scotia to southeastern Manitoba. In Tennessee, it is protected as an endangered species. Its habitats include moist regions including marshes, wet forests, and stream