Trout Lilies

We have huge colonies of these around here.  They are trout lilies - Erythronium americanum. Thousands and thousands of leaves carpeting the floor of the woods - but relatively few blooms.  They are also called Dog Tooth Violets, because their bulb resembles the tooth of a dog. 

We get excited to see them flowering, and they are actually really interesting wildflowers.  

The wiki page says that they can grow in large colonies up to 300 years old.  

According to this page at ediblewildfood.com, they are both medicinal and edible.  The leaves can be eaten as a salad green, but not in large quantities.   They have a symbiotic relationship with ants.   They grow mostly from runners rather than seed dispersal. 

Here's the page from the Lady Bird Johnson wildflower site.  Note:  their picture is wrong because true trout lilies have only one pair of leaves and one flower per plant.    I don't know what variety their picture is of - unless someone picked a bouquet and photoed that. 

Trout Lilies

We have loads and loads and loads of trout lily leaves in the woods. Huge colonies.

Huge.

But hardly any flowers.  This year we've seen more flowers than ever before.    More means that for every 20 square feet of leaves, we see a whole flower.  










They're about 6 inches high and super cheery in the woods.  One flower on a wiry stem per plant.  Notice those splotchy leaves. 

We're excited to see so many of these this year.

Trout Lily

We get loads of these pink and green mottled leaves.    Loads.  

But hardly any blooms.   It's weird. 


Lily found this one so we'd have proof that they actually exist.    Notice the cutleaf toothwort in the background.  

Cool, huh.