Such a little flower with so many names

I call it Dog Tooth Lily (Erythronium americanum), but you may call it Yellow Trout-Lily, or simply Trout-Lily, or Dog’s-Tooth Violet, or Eastern Trout-Lily, or Yellow Adder’s Tongue, or Adder’s Tongue, or  Fawn Lily, or Thousand Leaf, or Deer Tongue, or Yellow Snowdrop, or Yellow Adder’s Tongue Lily, or perhaps Yellow Fawn Lily. Nevertheless, it’s simply one of those beautiful flowers that screams “SPRING is here” while you are walking in the woods. dog tooth lily leaves only

There are perfectly good reasons for all those names. If you’re like me and love hiking in the woods, observing the daily changes, at first you see all these little single leaves that appear on the forest floor (ergo Thousand Leaf name). Each day, they get fuller and the green leaves start to develop brownish contrasting pigment that resembles the marking of a Brook Trout, a deer’s tongue or the camouflage coat of a fawn. On the other hand, perhaps another reason to associate it with Trout is that they start to appear the same time as trout season.  Adder’s tongue refers to the appearance of the emerging stamens of the flower, protruding like the tongue of a snake.

The name “dogtooth” refers to the tooth-like shape of the white underground bulb known as a corm, which looks like a dog’s canine tooth. The corms are edible raw and apparently taste like cucumber. This plant is not a violet nor related to violets, so why the name? Well, it’s simple guilt by association ~ since the leaves emerge in the spring at about the same time as the violet, the silly association was made.

Regardless of the name ~ it’s a welcome sight on hike through the woods.dog tooth flower

 

 

 

Vinegar does it again!

Folks, all you really need is white vinegar (and love) to clean just about anything. Recently, I found that it even cleans tarnished brass! I have a lovely brass tabletop tray that my grandfather brought back from India over 60 years ago. When my parents moved they gave it me. I had always loved it and was excited to bring it into my home but at first I didn’t know where to put it. As a result, it sat for many years in storage. One day, I found the perfect place, but discovered it was terribly tarnished along with some stains. It had at least 15 years of build up. In the past, I had used ketchup on tarnished brass, but the other items were no where as large as this tray and I would have needed a lot of ketchup, and having only organic ketchup in the house, I decided to looked for an alternative.

I started to think about what was in the ketchup that took off the tarnish ~ it was acid. Then it occurred to me, WHITE VINEGAR is acidic. So, I took the tray outside and poured some white vinegar onto it ~ Voilà ~ no more tarnish. Unfortunately, some of the stains remained but wow, what a difference and it was so easy, no scrubbing or rubbing. It was crazy easy.

Here’s another reason to always have white vinegar in the house. I do not know what I would do without it.

Please note that the before picture is of the back, because I forgot to take a picture of the front when I started the cleaning process.

Please note that the “before” picture is of the back, because I forgot to take a picture of the front when I started the cleaning process.