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Trout Lilies: Droppers, Deep Corms and a Kind of Seven Year Itch

© Gregg Pasterick

One of the most noticeable and abundant eastern wildflowers of spring is the Trout Lily. Funny thing is, when you happen upon a large colony of them, what you are likely to find underfoot are hundreds upon hundreds of the brown-mottled elliptical leaves, but no flowers! It takes at least 7 years for a Trout Lily to mature enough to begin flowering, and each and every one of those hundreds upon hundreds of leaves is from a separate bulb.

The earliest-blooming member of the Lily Family (Liliaceae), there are two kinds of Trout Lily, Yellow Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum) and White Trout Lily (E. albidum) . Blooming from March through June in rich meadows and woods, they can be found from Ontario to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia south to Georgia, west to Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma, north to Minnesota. Also known as Fawn Lilies, these common names refers to the mottled leaves' resemblance to a brook trout, or a fawn. (Western species are all known as one type of Fawn Lily or another.)

The Trout Lily's survival strategy depends upon deep roots and corms. Where the roots and bulbs of most lilies grow at shallow depths, Trout Lilies go much deeper.

Trout Lily seeds, which appear in June, germinate the following spring, creating small corms that grow near the surface. These produce several threadlike droppers, which begin growing downward. At the end of each of these droppers, now nearly a foot away from the "mother corm", and a few inches deeper, a new corm forms. Food from the "parent" passes along the droppers to the new corms.

Eventually the line between the parent and the new corm withers away (how many times have we seen that happen in life?). Each of these new offspring produces a single leaf which concentrates on producing food to send new droppers deeper into the soil the following year.

This process repeats for several years; it is believed that after 4 years, a single seed will have produced 9 new plants, with corms nearly 10" deep, deeper in loose soil. Above the ground we find the densely populated grove of flowerless Trout Lilies.

In addition to their survival, this web of droppers and corms and new plants contributes to the health of its environment, particularly in wet areas, where they help prevent erosion.

The nodding flowers are about 1" wide, with 3 petals and 3 petal-like sepals. All curve backward, which protects the important bits from rain washing away pollen and insect-drawing nectar. There are 6 stamens, with brownish or yellow anthers. Yellow Trout Lily flowers are, well, yellow on the inside, bronze on the outside. White Trout Lily flowers are (you guessed it) white, and are splashed with lavender on the outside.