Erythronium americanum Ker Gawl.

Trout lily, yellow trout-lily, dogtooth violet

Trout lilies are lilies, not violets; the name “dogtooth violet” is derived from the shape of its bulb. Botanist Carol Gracie relates the story of the odd-seeming name adder’s tongue, which may have come about due to the mottling on the leaves:

...John Burroughs, a nineteenth-century American naturalist and writer, felt that adder’s tongue was an inappropriate name for such a lovely plant and suggested either fawn-lily, for its leaves are spotted like the back of a fawn, or “Still better is the name ‘troutlily,’ which has recently been proposed for this plant. It blooms along the trout streams, and its leaf is as mottled as a trout’s back.” (p. 26)

Plants: These plants often form dense colonies. Basal leaves rarely exceed 6″ (15 cm) in height.

Leaves: Sharp-tipped elliptic to lanceolate, curiously mottled with brownish or purplish irregular splotches. They are 3–9″ (8–24 cm) long.

Flowers: Yellow inside and bronze, yellowish-brown or yellow outside, nodding, with six tepals—three petals and three identical-looking sepals—each ¾–1¼″ (2–3.3 cm) long. As the flowers mature, their petals bend way back, fully exposing six long brown stamens tipped with six anthers about ½″ (1.3 cm) long. The anthers are yellowish brown at first, darkening to deep red-purple.

Fruits: ⅜–½″ (1.2–1.5 cm) capsules held aloft on the flower stems, dispersed, principally, by ants.

Habitats: Moist woods, on wooded slopes and bluffs, and along streams.

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Erythronium americanum description by Thomas H. Kent, not updated.

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