Identification Help Please

Orchard Park, NY(Zone 5a)

I'm hoping someone can help me identify this plant. It just started popping up recently in various areas along the edge of a wooded area (this is the only plant so far that has bloomed but I do see buds on a few others). I did not see this plant last spring, but then again last spring (the first year this house was built) the ground was snow-covered here in Western New York (zone 5) until end of April/early May. The plant is very short (I think the picture shows it's just above the ground) with green-mottled leaves. It's is the same area roughly where I have May Apples and native asters as well.
Thanks a lot.

Thumbnail by roberta1977
Essex Junction, VT(Zone 4a)

I did a trait search at wildflower.org and it looks like Erythronium americium.

http://www.wildflower.org/gallery/species.php?id_plant=ERAM5

What a cool plant!

Orchard Park, NY(Zone 5a)

Thanks Evie...Your post came up while I was typing this one. Donald Leopold in his "Native Plants of the Northeast" gives its native range as from "Nova Scotia and western Ontario to Minnesota, south to Florida and Alabama, more common eastward." It needs to have ample sun in the spring in order to bloom, which may explain why I did not see it last "spring" when we had snowcover well into April (and even early May in patches). Where there are areas with lots of leaves but no blooms, you can mark these in spring for division in the fall. Plant the bulbs 3" deep and mulch well at that time. I'm enjoying it a lot...it was a happy surprise this spring. We are due to have a possibly heavy frost tonight; hopefully the blooms will not be affected (many are not yet open and I do have large areas with no blooms so far so I may be dividing and sharing in the fall).

Happy gardening.
Roberta

Stamford, CT(Zone 6b)

There are trout lilies in my shade garden. They've been there three years running since I discovered them. While it is a shade garden, when they bloom, there are still no leaves on the trees.. I did not set up this shade garden; it was here when we bought the house. However, it seems that almost everything that blooms is yellow: celandine poppy (quite invasive), lady's slipper and trout lily. We also have something else similarly mottled. A kind of trillium called sessile toadshade. I'm always amazed that these volunteers make a home in my gardens.

The celandine poppy is not the only invasive the former left me. There is one garden overrun with Houttuynia and some other annoying plants. In her defense, she left us peonies and tree peonies that are out of this world and some lovely clematis.

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