365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Friday, May 3, 2019
Erythronium Oregonum, Giant White Fawn-Lily
Day 202: Well, I did a double-take. "That's not an Avalanche Lily! What the hell...? Is that a Trout?" In the end, it proved to be Erythronium oreganum, commonly known as Giant White Fawn-Lily, but closely akin to both Avalanche and Trout Lilies and something I had never before seen. I was out on an invasive-plant patrol in the undeveloped Rimrock County Park. It's a lovely place for hiking in solitude, although the peace is frequently broken by the sounds of rifle fire from the local gun club, but I am willing to endure that in order to have the woods to myself. Besides, they're over a hill from the trail system and pose no danger to someone walking on the back side. So, like I said, I did a double-take. The mottled leaves told me it was no Avalanche Lily, nor would I have been likely to find them at such a low elevation. "Trout" and "Fawn" tend to follow some pretty indistinct rules in the application of common names to the Erythroniums, so being a fisherman, those speckly leaves led me to spend the rest of the day saying, "Trouts! I found Trouts!" Well, in between bending over to pull Digitalis and Tansy Ragwort, anyway. A "life list" plant is a pretty good reward for pulling weeds.
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