PRAIRIE FAWN-LILY
File Size: 117 KB
 
Erythronium mesochoreum  Knerr
Waubaunsee County, Kansas
Perennial
Height: 2-6 inches
Family: Liliaceae - Lily Family
Flowering Period:   March, April
Stems: Stemless. Scape spreading to erect.
Leaves: Basal, 1 in non-flowering individuals, 2 in flowering individuals, lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, .2 to 5.6 inches long, .02 to 1 inch wide, parallel-veined, margins entire, surfaces usually not mottled, glaucous.
Inflorescences: Flowers solitary, terminal.
Flowers: Flowers usually nodding, sometimes spreading; tepals 6, petal-like, distinct, white adaxially, with yellow spot at base, lanceolate, .4 to 1.2 inch, projecting to spreading, base without auricles; stamens 6, distinct, free, included to slightly exserted; pistil 1, 3-carpellate; style 1, not persistent on capsule; stigma 3-lobed.
Fruits: Capsules, obovoid, .4 to .66 inch, usually resting on ground at maturity; seeds brown, somewhat reniform, .08 to .12 inch.
Habitat: Tallgrass prairies and open oak-hickory woodlands
Distribution: Principally east 1/3 of Kansas
Origin: Native
Comments: Nonflowering individuals propagate vegetatively by means of buds or vertical, subterranean stems, called droppers, that grow downward from the old corm and form new corms their tips. Flowering individuals also may form buds on the corm. Erythronium, red, alluding to the flowers of the type species and mesochoreum, middle and place, alluding to the distribution in the central U.S.

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