The Rose and The Skunk Cabbage (A fable)

Once a Rose grew near to a Skunk Cabbage and the Skunk Cabbage was always boasting to the Rose about how many visitors it had.
“You see how popular I am?”, it would say, laughing coarsely and breathing out its halitosis all over the petals of the scarlet bloom, “And you? How many visitors do you get in a day, Miss Rose?”.
But the Rose knew better than to feel upset;
“Bad smells draw the biggest crowds, it’s true”, she said in her more refined and elegant voice, “But who wants to smell like rotting meat or be popular with flies?”.
And, anyway, over time the Skunk cabbage offended so many nostrils of passers-by that it was dug up and was thrown next to a pile of rubbish (which it became deeply envious of because of the large numbers of flies the rubbish pile attracted) while the rose, well the rose was so beautiful  and smelled so sweetly that many came to visit it and comment upon its beauty and one person, myself, even decided to write this story about it as a reminder that popularity is no indicator of quality and even if we were all to wear skunk cabbages in our lapels they would still never be as sweet smelling or as beautiful as roses.