Trout lilies? Never heard of them. Had to Google various descriptions for quite some time before they popped up. When I typed brown and green leaves I kept getting plant diseases, things that put brown splotches on leaves.
But I knew this was wrong. These were elegant splotchy leaves, a hardy ground cover scattered among my masses of vinca. Some of them had delicate yellow flowers dangling above the leaves.
So this was UD‘s own Trout Lily Discovery Walk – she happened on the things on one of her many walks along the paths she’s created through her back woods.
And how did they get there? I’ve lived here almost twenty years and I’ve never seen them before.
Margaret and Munro Leaf must have planted them, and it took all this time for them to flower.
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I found the image here.
April 17th, 2015 at 12:06PM
They can take 10+ years to flower, so it is possible that they’ve been lurking inconspicuously in your yard for a very long time. But wouldn’t you have noticed their leaves? They spread by runners, so it is also possible that they have moved in more recently from a neighbor’s yard.
So nice to see a post about this old friend!!
April 19th, 2015 at 4:24PM
They can definitely be found in the wild in the D.C. area (on TR island, to name one place, and in many other spots along the Potomac and its tributaries). Since they like wet spots, I think one other way the corms sometimes travel is via water (in a flood, for instance, perhaps in the wake of a tree uprooting and disturbing the soil around its roots). In any case, they’re lovely.