_Lilium philadelphicum_
_Flowers_--Erect, tawny, or red-tinted outside; vermilion, or sometimes
reddish orange, and spotted with madder brown within; 1 to 5, on
separate peduncles, borne at the summit. Perianth of 6 distinct,
spreading, spatulate segments, each narrowed into a claw, and with a
nectar groove at its base; 6 stamens; 1 style, the club-shaped stigma
3-lobed. _Stem:_ 1 to 3 ft. tall, from a bulb composed of narrow,
jointed, fleshy scales. _Leaves:_ In whorls of 3’s to 8’s, lance-shaped,
seated at intervals on the stem.
_Preferred Habitat_--Dry woods, sandy soil, borders, and thickets.
_Flowering Season_--June-July.
_Distribution_--Northern border of United States, westward to Ontario,
south to the Carolinas and West Virginia.
Erect, as if conscious of its striking beauty, this vivid lily lifts a
chalice that suggests a trap for catching sunbeams from fiery old Sol.
Defiant of his scorching rays in its dry habitat, it neither nods nor
droops even during prolonged drought; and yet many people confuse it
with the gracefully pendent, swaying bells of the yellow Canada Lily,
which will grow in a swamp rather than forego moisture. _La_, the Celtic
for white, from which the family derived its name, makes this
bright-hued flower blush to own it. Seedsmen, who export quantities of
our superb native lilies to Europe, supply bulbs so cheap that no one
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
curiously mottled and delicately pencilled leaves bring to mind, not a
snake’s tongue, but its skin, as they surely do. Whoever sees the sharp
purplish point of a young plant darting above ground in earliest spring,
however, at once sees the fitting application of adder’s tongue. But how
few recognize their plant friends at all seasons of the year!
Every one must have noticed the abundance of low-growing spring flowers
in deciduous woodlands, where, later in the year, after the leaves
overhead cast a heavy shade, so few blossoms are to be found, because
their light is seriously diminished. The thrifty adder’s tongue, by
laying up nourishment in its storeroom underground through the winter,
is ready to send its leaves and flower upward to take advantage of the
sunlight the still naked trees do not intercept, just as soon as the
ground thaws.