There are a good many kinds of Erythronium, all but one from North America, and, East and West, they are among our prettiest flowers. They have deep, membranous-coated, solid bulbs; a pair of netted-veined, unequal leaves, sometimes mottled with brown; flowers without bracts, large, nodding and bell-shaped, with usually six divisions, all colored alike, the tips turning back, each with a nectar-groove, and each with two or four little scales at base, or only the three inner divisions with scales; stamens on the receptacle, anthers not swinging; style more or less three-lobed; capsule more or less oblong and three-angled. The younger plants are often flowerless, with only one broad leaf, with a long leaf-stalk. The name is from a Greek word meaning "red," though these flowers are mostly yellow. The common name, Dog-tooth Violet, is old, and suggested by the little, white, toothlike offshoot often found on the bulb, but of course they are not in the least like Violets. In California they are often called Chamise Lily, and sometimes Adam and Eve, because the plant often bears a large and a small flower at the same time. Mr. Burroughs would like to call it Fawn Lily, on account of the mottled leaves of some kinds, which slightly suggest the ears of a fawn. Adder's-tongue, probably suggested by the long forked pistil, is also an old and usual name.
Muilla maritima.
Fire-cracker Flower—Brevoortia Ida-Maia.
Avalanche Lily
Dog-tooth Violet
Erythrònium montànum
White
Summer
Northwest
An exquisite kind, peculiarly graceful in form, with from one to nine, pure-white flowers, nearly three inches across, each petal prettily ornamented at the base with some orange-colored markings, arranged in a symmetrical scalloped pattern. The anthers are orange-yellow, the pistil white, the buds are pinkish and the leaves are very bright green and not mottled. This is very common around Mt. Rainier.
Glacier Lily
Dog-tooth Violet
Erythrònium parviflòrum
Yellow
Summer
Northwest
A lovely flower, much like E. grandiflorum, but the anthers are white or pale yellow. Around Mt. Rainier these beautiful plants often grow in large patches at the edge of the snow, alongside of the Avalanche Lily, E. montanum, but the two kinds do not seem to mingle.
Easter Bells
Dog-tooth Violet
Erythrònium grandiflòrum
Yellow
Spring, summer
Northwest and Utah
One of the loveliest of a charming group, growing in rich northern woods. The delicately-scented flowers, from one to six on a stalk, are about two inches across, clear yellow shading to white at the base, with purplish-red anthers, turning brown. A patch of these flowers bordering the edge of a glacier, as if planted in a garden-bed, is a sight never to be forgotten. Pushing their bright leaves right through the snow they gayly swing their golden censers in the face of winter and seem the very incarnation of spring. There are several similar kinds. In the Utah canyons these flowers in early spring are a wonderful sight, covering the wooded slopes with sheets of gold, and they seem to me to be the largest and handsomest of their clan, growing at an altitude of six thousand to eleven thousand five hundred feet, and blooming from March to July according to height. Easter Bells is a Utah name.
