Trout lily, Assekonk

Today was not really Earth Day, our local NPR station's audio celebration to the contrary, but it was close enough to merit a mention when I was in our local middle school to lead the sixth graders on one of my ongoing series of "nature walks" to help them learn about the citizenry of the natural world. Because, alas, I didn't sleep well at night, I'm afraid my brain was not at its sharpest—OK, I'm getting less-than-young, so maybe brain-training isn't such a bad idea—and I got a couple of "invasive species," a focus of my field lessons, wrong—Dandelions and Mullein are not natives, even though they've long been a component of our natural environment; write that on the blackboard 500 times... But this little charmer, an ephemeral spring wildflower called Trout Lily, I got right: Erythronium americanum is undeniably a bona fide member of our native flora. It was also a genuine surprise in the upland area by the Assekonk Swamp viewing platform that has become the highlight of our walks. Before we scan the wetland for ducks and geese, the kids delight in looking over the woods for logs to roll for salamanders. We found a couple of amphibians, but—glory be, I'd never seen Trout Lilies before in this area—we found a carpet of mottled leaves... and the vanguard of these lovely here-today, gone-very-close-to-tomorrow wild flowers.