DOOR TO NATURE
Lily-Family Flowers by Charlotte Lukes photos by Roy Lukes Michigan lilies are similar to the Turk’s cap, with strongly recurved, orange petals.
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his family of common wild and domestic plants is easy to identify because typical flowers are in parts of three or six, and the leaves are parallel veined. One of the most well known is the giant trillium of spring deciduous woodlands. This is the only flower in the group that does not have tepals. Lilies with six petals that appear the same are actually composed of three petals and three sepals that look alike, so the blossom cluster is called tepals. The trout lily is a good example: If you examine the back of the flower, you can
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see that the alternate petal structures are slightly different. A rare member of this family is the Canada mayflower, Maianthemum canadense (my-AN-the-mum can-aDENS). Upon close examination of the flower structure, you see that it has four petals and four stamens. However, the leaves are parallel veined and appear to be much like other lily plants. It is in full bloom here in May and is very common in forests. Three other members of the Maianthemum genus also grow in Door County: Solomon’s plume, M.
racemosum (ray-se-MO-sum); starry false Solomon’s seal, M. stellatum (stel-LAY-tum) and three-leaved false Solomon’s seal; M. trifolium (try-FOlee-um). Old field guides have these three listed with the genus of Smilacina (smy-li-SY-na). Two other trillium species can be found in northeastern Wisconsin. The nodding trillium, Trillium cernuum, (SIR-newum), grows during the mid-spring in conifer woodlands where the soil is acidic and moist. The other species is called the dwarf white or snow trillium, T. nivale, (niv-AL). The plant is only
