Trout Lilies at Tandy Hills

Continuing in the theme of “OMG, that was this year?” because apparently March has turned into January and is now the longest month ever (beware, I think April is going to be double in length as well)…let’s rewind to a month that blitzed right on by—February. Ah, we were out and about, seeing family and friends, taking hikes. And now? We look fondly back at photos and miss all of that time we spent out of doors (or eating in restaurants, or not being paranoid about the grocery store. Hm, I think I need to write an updated pandemic post…)

So, back to our chilly afternoon hike at Tandy Hills Natural Area in Fort Worth to see the trout lilies (Erythronium albidum). As I mentioned in a post from February where I shared photos from my phone, we hadn’t been to visit them since before Forest was born, so at least six years ago. Things have changed since then. Namely, the population we knew of is still in existence but being shaded out by native and invasive vegetation, namely privet. It really is too bad a controlled burn couldn’t happen on that property as it would really ignite a spectacular wildflower bloom there.

And the second change is iNaturalist. That led us to finding different populations of trout lilies that we didn’t know of. Of course it doesn’t take much to really find them, just walk the trails and go explore and you’ll see them. But a peek at iNaturalist helped us out in guiding us to some great populations in the area. That said, I still obscure my coordinates when I log them on iNaturalist.

The flower themselves are dainty and yet strong, reminding me of ballerinas. Honeybees were buzzing from flower to flower, collecting pollen to take back to hives. I could have just sat under the trees among the leaf detritus for several hours, reading, taking photos, and watching the pollinators buzz by.

And to think that these patches of flowers exist so close to I-30 and a network of historic suburban neighborhoods. You can only imagine what was on this prairie before all of that!