Erythronium americanum
| Yellow trout lily | |
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Erythronium americanum Radnor Lake, Tennessee |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Monocots |
| Order: | Liliales |
| Family: | Liliaceae |
| Genus: | Erythronium |
| Species: | E. americanum |
| Binomial name | |
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Erythronium americanum Ker-Gawl. |
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| Range within North America | |
| Synonyms | |
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Erythronium flavum Sm. |
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Erythronium flavum Sm.
Erythronium americanum (trout lily, yellow trout lily, yellow dogtooth violet) is a species of perennial, colony forming, spring ephemeral flower native to North America and dwelling in woodland habitats. Within its range it is a very common and widespread species, especially in eastern North America. The common name "trout lily" refers to the appearance of its gray-green leaves mottled with brown or gray, which allegedly resemble the coloring of brook trout.
The range is from Labrador south to Georgia, west to Mississippi, and north to Minnesota.
Trout lily does not flower for the first 4-7 years of its life. While the plant is too young to flower it will grow one leaf and once it has reached maturity may grow 2 paired leaves and a flower stalk. In any given trout lily colony 99% plants will be non-flowering and only have one leaf and .5% will have paired leaves and flowers.
Trout lily blooms in early spring before the trees growing above it develop leaves, this allows it to have unobstructed access to sunlight and also allows it to grow when soil nutrient levels are high. Each spring the plant will grow either a single or pair of 8-23cm long elliptic to lanceolate leaves, the leaves may be mottled with gray to purple and have entire leaf margins. Yellow trout lily produces an erect flower stalk with nodding one-inch, bisexual yellow flowers with 6 tepals, the tepals are composed (3) petals and (3) petal-like sepals which are both recurved upward. The fruit is a capsule 12-15mm long. The diploid number is 48. The flowers close at night.
Trout lily grows from a corm, or underground bulb 15-28mm long and shaped like an oval. The corm is often located in the upper 11cm of soil although it may be as deep as 30cm. The bulbs of E. americanum are buried very deeply compared to other lily family plants. In North America E. americanum does not reproduce very effectively via sexual reproduction with only 10% of pollinated flowers developing seeds.
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Wikipedia