The Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum) is a true Spring Ephemeral, living its entire above-ground life between snowmelt and the closing of the leaf canopy toward the end of May. It is one of the signature plants of Spring along the GAP and one of the most lovely. GAPers should not expect to find it along the verges of the GAP. It favors moist, rich, humus-heavy soils in part shade to full shade and is commonly found in mature forests of Sugar Maple, American Beech, Oaks, Hickories, and other hardwoods. The genus name Erythronium comes from Greek erythros (“red”). Old friend Carl Linnaeus coined it in 1753 based on the European species Erythronium dens-canis, which has pink-to-purple flowers, even though most American Erythronium species have yellow or white flowers. The species name americanum is simply Latin for “of America.”
Trout Lily has numerous other names, including Adder’s-tongue, Yellow Adder’s-tongue, Serpent’s Tongue, Rattlesnake Violet, Yellow Snakeleaf, and Snakeroot—not to be confused with White Snakeroot (Ageratina altissima), another common plant along the GAP—and Dog-tooth Violet.The snake references come from the sharply pointed shoots that push up in early spring and the protruding reddish anthers, said to resemble a snake’s flicking tongue. The plant was known under these names until the late nineteenth century, when famous naturalist and writer John Burroughs (1837–1921), based in the Catskill Mountains of New York where the plant was plentiful, coined the name Trout Lily, a reference to the mottled purplish-brown leaf pattern resembling the coloring of a brook trout—though the name may equally reflect the plant’s bloom at the start of trout season. Burroughs, who disliked the older name Dog-tooth Violet, in fact preferred Fawn Lily, since leaves “stand up like fawn’s ears,” and the mottling of the leaves recalls a fawn’s spotted coat.
Trout Lily—sticking with the current name—caused quite a stir when reports reached Europe in the 17th century that it was an aphrodisiac. John Parkinson (1567–1650), the last of the great English herbalists and one of the first of the great English botanists, wrote in his mammoth 1629 book Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris (Park-in-Sun’s Terrestrial Paradise): “Wee have had from Virginia a roote sent unto us, which the naturall people holde not onely to be singular to procure lust, but hold it as a secret, loth to reveale it.” In other words, Parkinson reported that the plant reached England via Virginia, and that Native people there regarded the root as a powerful aphrodisiac—one so effective that they were reluctant to share the knowledge of it. This report set off a craze among 17th-century European gardeners who were eager to get their hands on specimens of the plant. Apparently the craze did not last long.
Trout Lily also attracted the attention of the famous poet Emily Dickinson (1830–1886). She regarded Trout Lily, which she called Adder’s-tongue, as one of the “beautiful children of spring.” It appears in both her youthful correspondence and her poetry, where it becomes a sign that March has arrived and that the sun is beginning to awaken the woods. Her most memorable poetic reference occurs in the poem usually titled by its first line, “We like March”:
We like March—his shoes are Purple.
He is new and high —
Makes he Mud for Dog and Peddler —
Makes he Forests Dry —
Knows the Adder’s Tongue his coming
And begets her spot —
Stands the Sun so close and mighty —
That our Minds are hot —
It is unclear if Dickinson’s interest in Trout Lily was motivated by its alleged aphrodisiac properties. In any case, a pressed Trout Lily was among the 424 specimens of the herbarium she assembled as a schoolgirl, now held in the Emily Dickinson Collection at Harvard’s Houghton Library.
Trout Lily has a long history of use among Indigenous peoples of eastern North America, particularly the Cherokee and Iroquois, and later in American folk herbalism. Its use as an aphrodisiac does not turn up in later reports, but, oddly enough, Iroquois women reportedly used the raw plant (excluding root) as a contraceptive (young girls in particular, according to the ethnobotanical record), while other groups, including the Cherokee, reportedly used it to induce abortions. The corms are edible—crisp, chewy, and pleasantly sweet in early spring—but the plant is strongly emetic in quantity, and digging a corm kills a plant that may have taken seven years to reach flowering size. Nowadays it is seldom foraged or used for medicinal purposes. Trout Lily is now best admired as the beautiful Spring Ephemeral that it is. GAPers seeking aphrodisiacs or contraceptives should look elsewhere.
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| Trout Lily |
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| Trout Lily |
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| Trout Lily. Note Red-necked False Blister Beetle on the right petal. |
