The Oregon Fawn Lily, Erythronium oregonum and its many names.

Oregon Fawn lily- Erythronium oregonum
© 2011 Aislinn Adams
Oregon Fawn Lily, Erythronium oregonum.


The Fawn lily, Erythronium oregonum, and its many common names.

Erythronium oregonum has many common names- giant white fawn lily, Oregon fawn lily, dog’s tooth violet, trout lily, adder’s tongue, lamb’s tongue. Maybe this is why the Historic Deepwood Estate here in Salem, Oregon- where I live- has chosen the scientific name for their annual spring native plant festival. Not wishing to confuse people with a common name that is not “common” to all, they use the scientific name Erythronium (pronounced, err- ih-throne- ee-um.) Personally I find it much more useful to use the scientific name for the same reason. Never underestimate the creativity of humans to come up with interesting and numerous common names for one plant, and though they are lovely, ultimately they are rather confusing, especially when trying to communicate which plant you mean to someone.

My first fawn lily, Erythronium oregonum.

Erythronium oregonum was one of the first bulbs I planted in my own garden when I moved to Oregon many years ago. It has since seeded itself throughout my front yard, totally ignoring all my efforts to corral this charming spring bloomer into an attractive sweep of creamy yellow. It was one of these flowers that I used for my botanical illustration above, and inspired me to create my Pacific Northwest Native Plant Greeting Card Series.

The fawn lily and early plant explorers.

When I first saw this beautiful fawn lily here in the Willamette Valley I assumed it must have been collected by Lewis and Clark or David Douglas in the early 19th century. This is not the case. The first fawn lily to be described from this part of the world, pink fawn lily, Erythronium revolutum, was collected by Archibald Menzies in 1793 and described by James Edward Smith in 1809. Then in 1806 the fawn lily’s mountain “cousin” the glacier lily, Erythronium grandiflorum, was brought back by Lewis and Clark (Lewis called it a dog’s tooth violet in his journal) and described by Frederick Pursh in his Flora Americae Septentrionalis in 1814. (for more on the collection see my blog  The saga of the Lewis and Clark Plant Collection and the Irish nurseryman Bernard McMahon’s unwitting role in its fate!.) The glacier lily, Erythronium grandiflorum, also has other common names including yellow fawn lily and yellow avalanche lily.

The common fawn lily, Erythronium oregonoum, erroneously mis-identified.

It wasn’t until 1935 that the more common fawn lily, Erythronium oregonum, was finally described by the Oregon botanist, Elmer Applegate. As is often the case with plant exploration and identification, the story is not that straightforward. According to Applegate “for nearly a century this familiar plant has been known erroneously as Erythronium giganteum Lindl. or as Erythronium grandiflorum var. albiflorum.” ( Kalmiopsis Vol. 10 2003. Native Plant Society of Oregon.) So maybe my assumption wasn’t so far off the mark. Is it possible that some of the Erythronium grandiflorum bulbs collected by Douglas (April, 1826 and 1827) may have been Erythronium oregonum after all?

Elmer Applegate and David Douglas.

There is a tenuous link of a different kind between Applegate and Douglas. Applegate’s wife Esther Emily Ogden was a niece of Peter Skene Ogden (the well-known fur trader and chief trader with the Hudson’s Bay Company.) Douglas met Ogden August 30, 1826 at Fort Vancouver, Washington, directly after Douglas’ exciting 12-day descent of the Columbia River from Fort Colville in eastern Washington. During that descent he had a lucky escape when his canoe was wrecked at the Dalles; causing him to loose the insects he had collected in the interior and some seeds, but he managed to save bulbs of the glacier lily, Erythronium grandiflorum, collected in the Fort Colville area. In April the following year, while on his journey overland to Hudson Bay to meet his ship bound for England, he collected more of the glacier lily in the same area and transplanted them in the hope of keeping them growing all the way to England. Maybe it was these particular transplants that were the first fawn lilies that he is credited with introducing into England. Now I wonder if they were all glacier lilies: if some of the Oregon fawn lilies had not been introduced into the mix also?

When I drive by the Deepwood Estate along Mission Road here in Salem and see the expanse of pale yellow that is the fawn lily, it’s hard to imagine that Douglas didn’t see them while traveling though the Willamette Valley. At any rate, it is a wonderful sight to see and, no doubt, it will be enjoyed by the many visitors to the festival next weekend- Friday and Saturday April 5 and 6. For more information about the festival click here- http://historicdeepwoodestate.org/historic/estate/calendar_events/2013/04/05/  I am delighted to say that my cards will be on sale at the festival also.

Aislinn Adams

 

The saga of the Lewis and Clark Plant Collection and the Irish nurseryman Bernard McMahon’s unwitting role in its fate!

This week I’m posting a different botanical illustration of the Pacific Northwest native plant named for Bernard McMahon- and not one of my own. This actual botanical illustration was very possibly created in McMahon’s home. To find out how read on.

Tall Oregon grape. Mahonia aquifolium syn. Berberis aquifolium. Illustrated by Frederick Pursh in his Flora Americae Septentrionalis, 1814.
 According to Joseph Ewan (Frederick Pursh 1774-1820 and his Botanical Associates)
 you can see where Pursh traced the plant from the dried specimen in the Lewis and Clark Plant Collection.

The Lewis and Clark Plant Collection and Bernard McMahon’s role in its fate.

While researching my last blog – Nurseryman Bernard McMahon and the Oregon native plant with an Irish connection– I promised to return to the story of Bernard McMahon’s, sometimes unwitting, role in the fortunes of the Lewis and Clark Plant Collection.

“The convoluted history of the seeds and plants collected by Lewis and Clark, their passage from Washington and Oregon into the botanical record was nearly as arduous as the journey itself… Working largely behind the scenes, one obscure figure, Bernard McMahon, assumed a primary role in nurturing the seeds from field to page.”

Robert S. Cox

From the Pacific Northwest to McMahon’s nursery.

In order to understand how this happened let us go back a little and look at the history of this famed collection once it arrived back in the eastern U.S. The collection was shipped back east in two stages. The first shipment was sent back in 1805 and the second brought back by Lewis & Clark in 1806. There were two parts to the collection- the dried specimens and the live seeds. The dried specimens were sent to the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia where, it was understood, Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton would assist Lewis in preparing their description for publication. The seeds were divided between McMahon and William Hamilton who were to propagate and grow them in secret until such time as Lewis would bring the account of his travels and the plant collection to print. Apparently, McMahon proceeded immediately to germinate the seeds whereas Hamilton was slower to set to the task.

From under his nose!

While Jefferson and Lewis were counseling McMahon to keep the precious live plant collection secret fearing some unscrupulous botanist might, on discovering its existence at McMahon’s nursery, rob Lewis of his right to describing them first, in the end it was the dried specimens that were more at risk of being spirited away. Ironically, this was not done by some outside interloper but by the very person McMahon recommended to assist Lewis bring his work to publication; and it was this assistant who ultimately published the collection first, not in the United States but in England – adding insult to injury.

MacMahon helps speed up the plant collection’s journey to print.

For a variety of reasons both Barton and Lewis delayed in preparing the material for publication. McMahon, wishing to be helpful and possibly anxious to shorten the “quarantine” period of the secret plants he had in his care, recommended the young German botanist Frederick Pursh for the job.  Pursh was probably already familiar with some of the dried specimens, having been employed by Barton at the time that the first shipment of plants had arrived back east.

Difficult working conditions bring Pursh to MacMahon’s home.

By all accounts Barton was a difficult person to work for and things did not go well between him and Pursh- so much so that by early 1807 Pursh had moved into MacMahon’s home and begun working on Lewis’ plants there. At this time Lewis was Governor of the Louisiana Territory and living in St. Louis. MacMahon wrote several times to St. Louis seeking instruction on Pursh’s behalf but with no success. He also took it upon himself, while waiting for the arrival of Lewis, to pay Pursh to describe the dried specimens (which had been brought from Barton’s Herbarium.) Pursh had the work more or less completed by early 1809 and grew restless waiting for further instruction. However, in 1809 Lewis died in tragic circumstances. Clark, as executor of Lewis’ will, took over responsibility for the collection material but, while MacMahon kept the live and dried specimens in safe keeping for Clark, Pursh left (or should I say absconded?) with the drawings and descriptions- and as it turns out some of the dried specimens as well.

Somehow, amazingly, during all this time (over a year) while Pursh was living at MacMahon’s and working on the collection, he never discovered the live specimens growing at the nursery (Joseph Ewan- Frederick Pursh 1774-1820 and his Botanical Associates.)

Finally published in London, England.

A description of the well-travelled collection was finally published in England by Pursh in his Flora Americae Septentrionalis (1814.) It is not clear to me if Pursh was ever properly reimbursed  for the work he did for Lewis. Nonetheless does that excuse his behavior? Does a combination of frustrated ambition and impecuniosity justify his conduct? His mysterious disappearance from the U. S. and reappearance in London a couple of years later caused much speculation and criticism amongst American botanists at the time and maybe it is for this reason that his Flora never sold well.

What of the live plant specimens at McMahon’s Nursery?

According to Ewan the first evidence of McMahon advertising plants for sale from the collection was 1815. Sadly he didn’t live long enough to benefit from such sales, dying the following year. But as I mentioned in my last blog, his life and work was memorialized by the botanist Thomas Nuttall who, in 1818, named the genus of shrubs Mahonia for him in his flora, The Genera of North American Plants. According to the record this flora was much more successful than Pursh’s.

Aislinn Adams