Plant
Trout lily
Erythronium americanum
Also known as: dogtooth violet, yellow trout lily
A native spring-ephemeral wildflower of moist deciduous forests — paired mottled green-and-brown leaves (resembling brook-trout coloration, hence the common name) and single nodding yellow lily-like flower in early spring. Forms large clonal colonies that can take 7–8 years to reach flowering size; some forest colonies are estimated to be 1,300+ years old. Common in Staten Island's Greenbelt forest interior and protected forest sites.
Scientific
Erythronium americanum is a 6–10 inch spring-ephemeral perennial native to eastern North American deciduous forests. Paired mottled green-and-brown leaves emerge in early spring; flowering plants produce a single yellow nodding 6-tepaled flower on a slender stalk. The whole plant withers and disappears by late spring, retreating to the underground bulb to wait out summer.
Reproduces both by seed (slow) and by stolons (faster). Most plants in established colonies are juveniles — only a small fraction reach flowering size in any given year. Plants that flower require 7–8 years from seed; colonies persist for centuries.
Some old trout-lily colonies in mature eastern forests are estimated to be 1,300+ years old, making the species one of the longest-lived native wildflowers in the region.
On Staten Island
Common in the Greenbelt’s forest interior and at protected moist forest sites borough-wide. Spring emergence (typically March-early April) is one of the borough’s earliest woodland wildflower events. Often forms large patches alongside [[mayapple|mayapple]] and [[bloodroot|bloodroot]].
See also
Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.
- Member of: [[plants]]
- Contained by: [[staten-island]]
Sources
- USDA NRCS Plants Database: yellow trout lily
- Long-term Erythronium clonal-age literature
Rooted in life.
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