Kristen Lindquist: Trout lilies — color therapy at its best
That oh-so-brief window between winter's last chilly gasp and the leafing out of trees in spring is a significant one for the native wildflowers known as "spring ephemerals." These plants take advantage of the warming season and the momentary direct sunlight to flower while they can, in what can seem like a quick burst of life. For those of us starved for any sign of living color after a long, snowy winter, this efflorescence serves as welcome relief.
Trout lilies (Erythronium americanum) offer color therapy at its best right now, because where there's one of these bright yellow flowers, there are usually many more. Where conditions are right, colonies of them spread across the forest floor and, undisturbed, may persist for a long time. Larger colonies can be several hundred years old. If you visit a swath of trout lilies year after year, you might be perpetuating an historic ritual first enacted by flower lovers going back several previous generations.
Large colonies of flowers do not go unnoticed. In Grady County, Georgia, the unusual Wolf Creek Trout Lily Preserve permanently protects 140 acres of hilly forestland that includes, according to their website, "literally tens of millions of beautiful yellow and maroon dimpled trout lilies... the largest extent of trout lilies known anywhere in the world."
This preserve was established in 2009 with the support of the county and those who recognized what a unique and wonderful asset these spring flowers were for the area. This year trout lilies began to flower there in early February, delayed by the cold winter according to the Georgia timetable, but still three months ahead of when they typically appear here. Global climate change experts predict that Maine will experience more winters like this past one, so a new year's pilgrimage to witness the floral spectacle in Georgia could be a life-saving mission for many of us. When the bus is chartered, I'll be one of the first to sign up.
The flower's many common names—trout lily, fawn lily, adder's tongue, dog-tooth violet—provide a poetic description of the plant and reveal some of its natural history.
"Trout lily" refers to the leaves, which are mottled like the skin of a trout. Also, the flower blooms around the same time that trout fishing season opens. The dappled leaves may have also reminded some of the spotted coat of a fawn, another creature of spring, hence "fawn lily."
Some sources say, too, that the paired leaves of the plant stick up in early spring like the ears of a fawn curled up on the forest floor. "Adder's tongue" might refer to the spring shoot's similarity to a snake's tongue delicately tasting the spring air, or to the resemblance of the flower to a snake's wide-open mouth—although when it's fully opened with its petals curled back, that comparison loses ground. "Dog-tooth violet" is the most misleading name, because the trout lily isn't a violet at all, but a true lily. It doesn't even really look like a violet. But its corms, the underground bulb parts of the plant, supposedly resemble dog's teeth in some way.
These corms send out above-ground shoots, which produce new plants, thereby helping the colony to spread. While the lily also produces seeds, this connected web of offshoots is its primary method of propagation. The wild plants do not transplant well, however, so don't dig them up thinking you'll initiate a colony of your own in your backyard. Interestingly, the trout lily takes up to seven years to reach maturity and produce its first flower. Young plants produce only one leaf for several years, until some fertile force inside the plant switches on causing two leaves to unfurl, then one single flower. Once this flower has bloomed, the plant goes dormant, its flicker of brief, bright beauty extinguished until the following spring when that ephemeral window opens once again.
Trout lilies grow in hardwood forests throughout the East, preferring well-drained soils, particularly sunlit slopes. The cheery yellow flowers streaked with red are best looked for on a sunny afternoon when they're fully opened. Every spring, while ostensibly watching birds, I find my gaze drawn downward by these highly photogenic flowers. On your own quest for this lovely harbinger of spring, Coastal Mountains Land Trust's Beech Hill Preserve in Rockport, which hosts several trout lily colonies visible from the Woods Loop Trail off Rockville Street, is an easy place to begin.
Kristen Lindquist is an amateur naturalist and published poet who works for Coastal Mountains Land Trust in her hometown of Camden.
More Meditations
Spring peepers in autumn: Why are they still talking
Fall migration on Monhegan and the Yellow-rumped Warbler
