Alternate name: Wild Yellow Lily
Family: Liliaceae, Lily view all from this family
Description From 1 to several nodding flowers, each on a long stalk and ranging in color from yellow to orange-red with dark spots, are at the top of a stem that also bears whorled leaves.
Flowers: 2-3" (5-7.5 cm) wide; 3 petals and 3 petal-like sepals arch outward but not backward; stamens 6, with brown anthers.
Leaves: to 6" (15 cm) long; lanceolate, in whorls of 4-10, with veins beneath bearing minute prickles.
Fruit: erect capsule 1-2" (2.5-5 cm) long.
Height: 2-5' (60-150 cm).
Flower June-August.
Habitat Wet meadows, woodlands, and borders.
Range Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia; south to New England, eastern Maryland, Pennsylvania, and, in the mountains, to South Carolina; Florida west to Alabama; north to southern Indiana.
Discussion As many as 16-20 of these beautiful, stalked, nodding flowers may be borne on one plant, either rising from the axils of leafy bracts or in a group at the end of the flowering stalk. The flower buds and roots were gathered and eaten by Indians. A similar Midwestern species, Michigan Lily (L. michiganense), has sepals and petals which curve backward until they touch the flower tube.
