Easter Day, 5 April 2026

This native lily is blooming today at Fall Run Park in Glenshaw, PA. I found it yesterday while looking for Louisiana warblers (Parkesia motacilla), whom we heard but never saw.

Trout lilies (Erythronium americanum) grow from 1/2″ to 1″ oval underground corms buried very deeply compared to other lily family plants. I believe the depth is an advantage for those that grow in a flood plain that washes away or fills with silt after a flood. For instance, at Raccoon Creek Wildflower Reserve.

When you find one trout lily you usually find many because they grow in colonies. Some trout lily colonies are as much as 300 years old. Individuals in a colony often reproduce asexually from small bulbs budding off of the main corm or via a tubular fleshy stem called a “dropper.”

The trout lily’s name comes from its “gray-green leaves, mottled with brown or gray, which allegedly resemble the coloring of brook trout.”

I used to think the flower partly got its name because it always blooms during trout season in Pennsylvania. (Trout season opened yesterday at 8:00am.)

Note: Most of this article is paraphrased from the Wikipedia article on trout lily.