Plant of the Month March 2022:Yellow Trout Lily

Yellow or American Trout Lily, Erythronium americanum
March 2022 Plant of the Month
by Betsy Washington
Photos by Betsy Washington

Trout Lily is one of our earliest woodland wildflowers to bloom each spring with exquisite nodding yellow flowers with back-swept petals. The entire plant is only 4 -6” high with smooth lance to oblong gray-green leaves exquisitely mottled with purplish brown, supposedly resembling dappled coloring of a Brook Trout. As with other members of the lily family, each flower has parts in threes or multiples thereof. What appears to be six yellow petals are actually three yellow sepals and three yellow petals (tepals) with six stamens tipped with yellowish to rusty anthers that protrude from the flower. The delicate petals are blushed with reddish-purple on the undersides adding to their charm. The flowers track the sun, opening each morning and closing again at night to protect the pollen and reproductive parts from the vagaries of early spring cold and rain. The small green seed capsules develop by May, maturing to brown and split into three sections to release the seeds. As with many spring ephemerals, ants are the primary disperser of the seeds. They relish the nutritious fatty bundles (called elaiosomes) attached to each seed and carry them back to their nests, eating the fatty bundles and discarding the seeds.

This diminutive wildflower is one of our loveliest spring ephemerals, so called because they are short lived and brilliantly adapted to emerge in very early spring while the forest trees are still bare, and the forest floor is bathed in sunlight. Their leaves emerge in February to March, quickly followed by the solitary flowers – one flower per plant (with two leaves). The precocious flowers are pollinated and form seeds in just a few short weeks, all before the canopy trees have fully leafed out in May. Trout lilies grow from a corm, a bulb-like structure resembling a garlic clove (or ‘dog tooth’) with a papery husk and a ring of fibrous roots at the base. Smaller corms appear to be sterile, sending up only a single leaf and no flowers. Larger corms produce a pair of leaves and a single flower. Trout lilies are strongly colonial and spread by runners or offshoots, often forming extensive colonies. Larger colonies can be 100 years old or more! The plants gradually wither away by summer and go dormant until the next spring. What a great strategy to beat the summer heat, drought, and competition in a heavily shaded forest!

Individual flowers can last up to 10 days and produce an abundance of nectar and pollen. Trout Lilies are pollinated by long-tongued bees, blowflies, and early spring flying butterflies. They also have their own specialist miner bee (Andrena erythronii) that depends on the pollen of Trout Lilies to feed its young. The corms themselves are full of carbohydrates and are eaten by mammals such as chipmunks and black bears.

Trout Lilies range from Nova Scotia and western Ontario south to Florida and Alabama. They occur in many counties in the Piedmont and Mountains of Virginia but are uncommon in the coastal plain. They are recorded in both Lancaster and Richmond Counties in the Northern Neck in rich, moist forests and well-drained floodplain forests.

In our gardens, Trout Lilies prefer rich, moist soil with lots of humus under the shade of deciduous trees. They are difficult to grow from seed so are not widely available in the nursery trade. Buy only from reputable native plant nurseries that propagate them responsibly without threatening wild populations. If you are fortunate enough to have them growing on your property, you can increase your plantings by dividing offsets, and replanting right away before the corms dry out. Sometimes it is best to simply enjoy these beautiful spring ephemerals in their natural habitat. Plan an early spring hike to Hickory Hollow Natural Area Preserve in Lancaster County and look for these exquisite wildflowers on the moist slopes near the bottom of the Cabin Swamp trail. And be sure to admire the many other spring ephemerals such as Spring Beauties, Marsh Marigolds, Toothworts, Golden Ragwort, Spicebushes, and so many more! Happy Spring!