should wait four years for flowers from seed, or go without their
splendor in our over-conventional gardens.


Yellow Adder's Tongue; Trout Lily; Dog-tooth "Violet"

_Erythronium americanum_

_Flower_--Solitary, pale russet yellow, rarely tinged with purple,
slightly fragrant, 1 to 2 in. long, nodding from the summit of a
root-stalk 6 to 12 in, high, or about as tall as the leaves. Perianth
bell-shaped, of 6 petal-like, distinct segments, spreading at tips,
dark spotted within; 6 stamens; the club-shaped style with 3 short,
stigmatic ridges. _Leaves:_ 2, unequal, grayish green, mottled and
streaked with brown or all green, oblong, 3 to 8 in. long, narrowing
into clasping petioles.

_Preferred Habitat_--Moist open woods and thickets, brooksides.

_Flowering Season_--March-May.

_Distribution_--Nova Scotia to Florida, westward to the Mississippi.

Colonies of these dainty little lilies, that so often grow beside
leaping brooks where and when the trout hide, justify at least one of
their names; but they have nothing in common with the violet or a dog's
tooth. Their faint fragrance rather suggests a tulip; and as for the
bulb, which in some of the lily-kin has toothlike scales, it is in this
case a smooth, egg-shaped corm, producing little round offsets from its
base. Much fault is also found with another name on the plea that the