White Trout-lily, White Adder's Tongue, Dog-tooth Violet, White Fawn Lily, Erythronium albidum Nutt., Native Minnesota Wildflower plant, Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

	Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden
	Common Name	Scientific Name	Plant Family	Garden Location	Prime Season
	White Trout Lily	Erythronium albidum Nutt.	Lily	Woodland	Spring
Other names and notes	(White Fawn Lily, White Adder's Tongue, White Dog-tooth Violet). An ephemeral of the early spring woods, the leaves are usually mottled (usually with brown) are basal and there are usually two. The white flowers, about 1 -1/2" long, may have a blue tinge. The flowers are nodding on short stems, 4 to 8" high and appear before the tree canopy leafs out. Growing from rhizomes, they form dense groupings. The best grouping to view are on the west path between stations 16 to 22. Eloise Butler's thoughts about this plant are given below.

Notes: The plant was on Martha Crone's 1951 inventory of plants in the Garden at that time. She reported in her log planting it in 1934. Native to a wide swath of Minnesota, generally running from the SE to the NW in counties wooded with deciduous trees, and occasionally in St. Louis County. This is the most common of Minnesota's three species of Trout Lily. Eloise Butler wrote: "With the advance of May, Mother Nature’s spinning wheels whir faster and faster, and the earth-carpet - the most lovely product of her looms - is woven with intricate designs of flowers in bewildering profusion. But from them all we single out the dogtooth violet or adder’s tongue (now called Trout Lily) for special admiration. The latter name, due to the tongue-shaped, brown-bloched leaf, is more appropriate, for the plant is a species of lily and of no kin to a violet. It has two shining leaves which spring from a deeply buried bulb. Between the leaves arises a beautiful cream colored bell slightly tinted with mauve at the base."(Published in the Sunday Minneapolis Tribune May 7, 1911.)

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References: Plant characteristics are generally from sources 15, 16, 30, 31, 33, W2 & W3. Distribution principally from W2 and also 31, 34 and W1. Planting history generally from 1, 4 & 4a. Other sources by specific reference. See Reference List for details.

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