The lily around the corner
I came across this plant starting to flower when I was walking through my neighborhood in Chicago over the weekend.
I believe it’s a trout lily (Erythronium albidum or americanum) They’re rare flowers to find in cultivation, because they’re very slow growers with a small ecological niche. ‘Woodland ephemerals’ sustain themselves by blooming early in the spring, before the forest canopy leafs out, and disappear into background greenery by the summer.
Their seeds are difficult to germinate (multiple years of lying dormant in a cold, wet place); they grow slowly, and they flower even slower. One plant nursery quotes William Cullina, author of the very good Guide to Growing and Propagating Wildflowers, that they might take five years or more to flower for the first time.
By electing to grow so early, these flowers distinguish themselves; when most plants still look asleep and bare, the trout lily shows its vibrant, maroon-flecked leaves.
It’s great to see someone treating a yard as a preserve, a place to build up rare and unusual plant types which usually exist in parks far from the city.