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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