Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

PRAIRIE FAWN-LILY

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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.

Prairie fawn-lily