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. 

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.