Lily-Family Flowers

by Charlotte Lukes photos by Roy Lukes

This 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 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

Michigan lilies are similar to the Turk’s cap, with strongly recurved, orange petals.

three to six inches tall, and the species name refers to snow.

When the trilliums are nearing the end of their blooming season, the giant Solomon’s seal, Polygonatum biflorum, (pol-ee-GON-a-tum bi-FLOR-um), puts on a show. This species is often called the “true” Solomon’s seal, whereas the Solomon’s plume, mentioned earlier, is called the false Solomon’s seal. The giant has pairs of small flowers hanging down under the stem. The other species has a four- to five-inch white flower cluster at the end of the stem.

There’s a rhyme that helps to distinguish these two plants, and it fits Door County’s sailing community: “Solomon’s seal, for it to be real, must have flowers along its keel.” That means that the pairs of flowers hang down under the main stem of the plant.

My late husband, Roy, and I always preferred to call the false Solomon’s seal the Solomon’s plume. The large cluster of flowers does look like a plume. Another rhyme I found is this: “Solomon’s plume, for it to pretend, must have flowers at its end.”

Other lily species that bloom in the spring are the large-flowered bellwort, yellow trout lily and blue bead lily. A plant that produces leaves early in spring – the wild leek – does not blossom until July. By then, the leaves have died back, and this bare stalk of white flowers mystifies many people. They can’t figure out what it is because there are no leaves surrounding the stem. This is in the onion genus, Allium (AL-ee-um).

The Ridges Sanctuary is a good place to see the deep-orange wood lily, Lillium philadelphicum (LIL-ee-um fill-uhDEL-fih-kum), which can reach a height of three feet and has upward, pointed blossoms. It is sometimes called the orange cup lily because of the shape of the flower.

Another brilliant, orange lily is the Michigan lily, which grows three to six feet high. It’s also known as the Turk’s cap lily and has flowers that point toward the ground with strongly recurved petals. Years ago, we found a group along a quiet country road in a wooded area that appeared to be an abandoned farmstead.

The Ridges Sanctuary is home to a midsummer bloomer called the death camass lily, Zigadenus elegans (ziGAD-en-us EL-eh-ganz). Another name is the white camass lily, and it likes to grow in limy soils. The “death” part of its name came from cattle being poisoned by consuming the plant.

Its waxy, white-to-pale-green flowers wave in the August wind on plants that grow up to two feet tall, and the six-parted blossom may play tricks on visiting insects: If they overindulge on the nectar, it can have a stupefying effect, as if the flower is saying, “You can have a little bit, but not too much!” A botanist friend who often enjoyed seeing The Ridges Sanctuary during the summer called this plant the wand lily because of its gentle, swaying motion in a breeze.

Spatterdock or yellow pond lily and the fragrant white water lily are seen all summer on the north side of the Kangaroo Lake causeway. They are in their own group called the water lily family, Nymphaeaceae (nim-fee-AY-seeee), named for water nymphs. There are other common lily plants that we enjoy, such as some of the imported ornamental Asiatic or tiger lilies. Others in this group are daylilies, which grow along roadsides and spread from old homesteads. The lily of the valley is another import, and it can become invasive. Peninsula State Park, in fact, had a large area where these were almost out of control. Many gardeners enjoy hostas for their great variety of leaves and flowers, but they, too, are not native. Surprisingly, two other popular nonnative plants in the lily family are the grape hyacinth and asparagus.

Regardless of whether the plants are native or imported, there are many species in the lily family that give joy to gardeners and naturalists alike. From the lowly, onion/garlic-scented leeks of the April woods, to the sprawling, naturalized patches of daylilies now marking sites of homesteads that have long disappeared from the landscape, lilies continue to be the champions of innocence, purity and magnificence. In fact, it would be difficult to imagine being any closer to paradise than when “in the beauty of the lilies.”