''Erythronium'', the fawn lily, trout lily, dog's-tooth violet or adder's tongue, is a genus of

Eurasia Eurasia ( , ) is a continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. According to some geographers, Physical geography, physiographically, Eurasia is a single supercontinent. The concept of Europe and Asia as distinct continents d ...

n and

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

n plants in the lily family, most closely related to

tulip Tulips are spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes in the ''Tulipa'' genus. Their flowers are usually large, showy, and brightly coloured, generally red, orange, pink, yellow, or white. They often have a different colour ...

s. The name Erythronium derives from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

() "red" in Greek, referring to the red flowers of ''E. dens-canis''. Of all the established species, most live in North America; only six species are found in Europe and Asia.

Taxonomy

It was published by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

in 1753Linné, Carl von, & Salvius, Lars. (1753). Caroli Linnaei ... Species plantarum :exhibentes plantas rite cognitas, ad genera relatas, cum differentiis specificis, nominibus trivialibus, synonymis selectis, locis natalibus, secundum systema sexuale digestas... (Vol. 1, p. 305). Impensis Laurentii Salvii. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/358324 with ''Erythronium dens-canis'' as the type species.

Species

''Erythronium'' includes about 20–30

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

hardy Hardy may refer to: People * Hardy (surname) * Hardy (given name) * Hardy (singer), American singer-songwriter Places Antarctica * Mount Hardy, Enderby Land * Hardy Cove, Greenwich Island * Hardy Rocks, Biscoe Islands Australia * Hardy, ...

spring-flowering

perennial In horticulture, the term perennial ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the year") is used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. It has thus been defined as a plant that lives more than 2 years. The term is also ...

plants Plants are the eukaryotes that form the kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria to produce sugars f ...

with long, tooth-like

bulb In botany, a bulb is a short underground stem with fleshy leaves or leaf basesBell, A.D. 1997. ''Plant form: an illustrated guide to flowering plant morphology''. Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K. that function as food storage organs duri ...

s. Slender stems carry pendent

flower Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, m ...

s with recurved

tepal A tepal is one of the outer parts of a flower (collectively the perianth). The term is used when these parts cannot easily be classified as either sepals or petals. This may be because the parts of the perianth are undifferentiated (i.e. of very ...

s in shades of cream, yellow, pink and mauve. Species are

native Native may refer to: People * '' Jus sanguinis'', nationality by blood * '' Jus soli'', nationality by location of birth * Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory ** Nat ...

to forests and meadows in

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (approximately 23.5° to 66.5° N/S of the Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ran ...

regions of the Northern Hemisphere.

Formerly included

Two species names were coined using the name ''Erythronium'' but have since been reclassified to other taxa. * ''Erythronium carolinianum'', now called ''

Uvularia perfoliata ''Uvularia perfoliata'', the perfoliate bellwort, is a perennial forb indigenous (ecology), native to the eastern United States and Canada, which produces pale yellow flowers in spring. Description The smooth slender stem of ''Uvularia perfoli ...

'' * ''Erythronium hyacinthoides'', now called '' Drimia indica''

Cultivation and uses

Erythroniums are widely grown as

ornamental plant Ornamental plants or ''garden plants'' are plants that are primarily grown for their beauty but also for qualities such as scent or how they shape physical space. Many flowering plants and garden varieties tend to be specially bred cultivars th ...

s, with numerous hybrids and

cultivar A cultivar is a kind of Horticulture, cultivated plant that people have selected for desired phenotypic trait, traits and which retains those traits when Plant propagation, propagated. Methods used to propagate cultivars include division, root a ...

s having been selected for garden use. Popular cultivars include ''Erythronium'' 'Pagoda', ''E.'' 'Sundisc', ''E.'' 'Joanna', ''E.'' 'Kondo', ''E.'' 'Citronella', ''E. californicum'' 'White Beauty', and ''E.'' 'Rosalind'. Propagation is best by seed in autumn or by division of bulbs, depending on species. Some species propagate vegetatively. The plant is also great as a ground cover, as it will spread over several years. Erythroniums are woodland plants and require rich soil, full of organic matter. Soil should be evenly moist and slightly acidic. They prefer shade or filtered sunlight. The following

s, of mixed ancestry, have won the

Royal Horticultural Society The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr ...

Award of Garden Merit The Award of Garden Merit (AGM) is a long-established award for plants by the British Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). It is based on assessment of the plants' performance under UK growing conditions. It includes the full range of cultivated p ...

: *'Apple Blossom' (white with yellow centre) *'Janice' (pink) *'Joanna' (cream/pale yellow throat) *'Pagoda' (cream yellow) *'Sundisc' (yellow) *'Wildside Seedling' (white/yellow) The

is edible as a

root vegetable Root vegetables are underground plant parts eaten by humans or animals as food. In agricultural and culinary terminology, the term applies to true roots, such as taproots and root tubers, as well as non-roots such as bulbs, corms, rhizomes, and ...

, cooked or dried, and can be ground into

flour Flour is a powder made by Mill (grinding), grinding raw grains, List of root vegetables, roots, beans, Nut (fruit), nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredie ...

. The leaves can also be cooked as a

leaf vegetable Leaf vegetables, also called leafy greens, vegetable greens, or simply greens, are plant leaves eaten as a vegetable, sometimes accompanied by their petioles and shoots, if tender. Leaf vegetables eaten raw in a salad can be called salad gre ...

. In

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, ''Erythronium japonicum'' is called ''

katakuri ''Erythronium japonicum'', known as Asian fawn lily, Oriental fawn lily, Japanese fawn lily is a pink-flowered species Erythronium, trout lily, belonging to the Liliaceae, Lily family and native to Japan, Korea, the Russian Far East (Sakhalin Is ...

'', and the bulb is processed to produce

starch Starch or amylum is a polymeric carbohydrate consisting of numerous glucose units joined by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by most green plants for energy storage. Worldwide, it is the most common carbohydrate in human diet ...

, which is used for food and other purposes.

References

Bibliography