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A study published this month in the journal Science explored the exact genetic mechanisms of Asarum flowers to figure out how they pull this off, exploring the ways some plants in the genus produce dimethyl disulfide, that corpse-smell compound.

There is even the occasional anagram, where an existing genus name is remixed to form a new, botanically related one: Saruma is a cousin of the more familiar Asarum, like the native ground-cover ginger, Asarum canadense.

A little farther along are whole drifts of the hardy but deciduous native ginger, Asarum canadense, which spreads assertively in rich humus but is easily controlled.

This is not to be confused with the hardy ginger named Asarum, of which Avent offers five Asian species.

In the herbal preparations that they tested, Bunce and his colleagues found members of 68 plant families, among them plants of the genera Ephedra and Asarum.