Trout lily (Erythronium americanum) exhibits striking variation in the colour of its anthers & pollen grains: from brick red to lemon yellow, and all shades of orange in between. Although this variation was described >120 years ago, its ecological significance remains virtually unstudied.
The goal of the Trout Lily Project is to document the frequency of yellow, red, and orange anthers across the range of American trout lily (Erythronium americanum). If you’re out admiring the spring ephemerals this year, please take a closer look at the trout lilies, and submit your observations here.
Update: The project (among other plant work) was recently discussed on the In Defense of Plants podcast. You can take a listen here . With thanks to Matt Candeias.
Brick red on two different plants located in Genesee county Mi.
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Found a patch of lilies that all stamens were bright yellow. Mott lake , Genesee county
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I surveyed my property at Lat 43.1625011, Long -80.9593525 today and we probably have over 5 acres of trout lily, (E. americana ). Most of it this year’s foliage is single leaf and very few blooms. I opened 50 flowers because it was cool and cloudy and can report 4 orange and 23 yellow and 23 red. I tried to login without success to submit data.
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Hi Donald,
Thanks very much for providing these data. I’m sorry you had trouble with the CitSci site, and will be sure to enter your observations myself. Sincerely, Emily Austen
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Talked to a botanist I know – he said the color of a stripe in the midline of tepals matches pollen color and this would be easier to record. I checked this at my site (Boyer Woodlot) and found that while it is generally true, there are a few cases of tepal stripe and pollen color mismatch. Also noted about 2% of flowers where stamen failed to develop full length; one of these had pollen/tepal mismatch.
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Hi Clement,
Thanks very much for these interesting observations. A few years ago, when I first noticed the anther colour variation, I thought it correlated with the colour of the back (abaxial) tepal surface, too. But, like you, after further observation I had to concede that this didn’t seem to be the case. At least not consistently. Have you got any photos of the flowers with undeveloped stamens? thanks again, Emily
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I did the count on April 28, even though I’m submitting today. My patch is ~ a quarter acre, quite dense with trout lilies. I found 10 in bloom on that date and they were all brick red.
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