How smelly is California Fetid Adderstongue?

With fetid in the name of the plant, you would naturally expect the California Fetid Adderstongue (Scoliopus bigelovii) to be a real stinker. On my annual visit to the Bolinas Ridge Trail to admire these stunning leopard-spotted plants, I was finally able to get a good whiff of the scent.

photo of California Fetid Adderstongue plant. Leaves are green with dark spots. Flowers are maroon striped.

With my head bent low to the ground where the flower blooms, the challenge is to smell anything other than the musty redwood forest duff. This year, the weather was mild and calm which helped the smell to linger. Finally after smelling a few different flowers, I got a faint whiff! It was a slightly astringent wet dog smell. Not putrid but not pleasant either. Perhaps to the tiny fungus gnat that pollinates the lily and the ants that carry away the seed pods the scent is delightfully putrid.

Based on previous experience, I waited until March, setting out early on the 5th on my usual route up the McCurdy Trail to the Bolinas Ridge Trail then hiking south. This was good timing and I encountered a wide variety of adderstongue in different stages of development. Most had already flowered which seemed earlier than last year’s bloom.

tiny leaves as the first flower blooms

stems carrying seed pods bend toward the earth

a profusion of lilies

across from the water tank on the trail

growing out the side of a bank

growing from the bank

In 2021 I challenged myself to stop and watch for pollinators on the Adderstongue. I failed. well, mostly. What I noticed instead was many plants had been voraciously nibbled, sometimes the whole end of the leaves were missing and other times leaves were browsed along the edges or pitted with holes. I inspected the plants for clues about what insect or gastropod was the culprit. I found nothing crawling on the leaves. Based on the large size of the areas eaten, I would guess it’s a large critter such as a banana slug or snail doing the nibbling. The photos below are from the Bolinas Ridge Trail heading north from the McCurdy Trail toward the Randall Trail, another hot spot for adderstongue and evidently the most tasty on the trail.