Friday Fabulous Flower - Trout lily

The spring, woodland ephemerals are a special pleasure this time of year.  The Phactors share a largish patch of these white trout lilies with the neighbors to the east. Lots of plants have no respect for fences or property boundaries. The only thing transgressing from the neighbors to the west is garlic mustard. TPP grew up with the yellow trout lily, but locally Erythronium albidum is the prevalent species.  It's smaller, has more bluish tints to the leaf, and of course a white flower.  But altogether charming especially when you get down to their level. 

Friday fabulous flower - white trout lily

Running a bit late this week, but the last two days have been really busy.  It's always like this at the end of the semester and the beginning of the field and gardening season.  And even worse, TPP had to waste time mowing some lawn, which was a bit tricky because of the clusters of bulb leaves to avoid.  Some times when you're busy and when you've got a lot to do you tend to overlook the little quiet things that are happening here and there.  In various places in our gardens are patches of native plants that pretty much take care of themselves.  Along the fence separating our gardens from the neighbors' dog run is a large patch of trout lily (Erythronium albidum).  This plant appears in many places around our shade gardens, and generally you simply look down on it from above, but when you get down and take a squirrel's eye view you really get to see just how fabulous this flower is.  It's a wonderful wild flower and easily naturalizes; it spreads, but slowly.