White trout-lily

Bulbs ovoid, 15–30 mm; stolons 1–3, mostly on 1-leaved, nonflowering plants; flowering plants reproducing vegetatively by offshoots or droppers. Leaves 8–22 cm; blade green, irregularly mottled, elliptic-lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate or elliptic, ± flat, glaucous, margins entire. Scape 7–20 cm. Inflorescences 1-flowered. Flowers: tepals strongly reflexed at anthesis, white, tinged pink, blue, or lavender abaxially, with yellow adaxial spot at base, lanceolate, 22–40 mm, auricles absent; stamens 10–20 mm; filaments yellow, lanceolate; anthers yellow; pollen yellow; style white, 15–25 mm; stigma lobes recurving, 1.5 mm. Capsules held erect at maturity, obovoid, 10–22 mm, apex rounded to faintly apiculate or umbilicate. 2n = 44.

Flowering spring. Mesic bottomlands, upland forests, woodlands, clay and silt bottomlands, floodplain forests; 0--300 m; Ont.; Ala., Ark., Ga., Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., Ky., La., Md., Mich., Minn., Miss., Mo., Nebr., N.J., N.Y., Ohio, Okla., Pa., S.Dak., Tenn., Tex., Va., W.Va., Wis.

Erythronium albidum often forms extensive colonies in which nonflowering, 1-leaved plants far outnumber flowering, 2-leaved ones. It is very widespread in eastern North America, more common in the central states than E. americanum and often occurs in slightly drier sites.