Coast Range fawn lily – State Wildlife Action Plan

Photo Credit: Oregon Department of Agriculture

Coast Range fawn lily is a perennial arising from a corm 2-5.5 cm long by 0.8-1.5 cm wide, which produces new cormlets laterally. Leaves are uniformly deep green or faintly mottled with brown or white. Non-flowering plants bear a single leaf, 6-8 cm long by 45 cm wide, the broad ovate-lanceolate blade usually abruptly narrowed to a slender, nearly wingless petiole. Flowering plants bear two more or less prostrate leaves 7-20 cm long by 2-4 (-8) cm wide, the narrowly lanceolate blade, often with wavy margins, gradually narrowed to a short, winged petiole. Flowers are nodding, number 1-2 (-4), and are borne on a scape 10-30 cm tall. The perianth is strongly reflexed in bright sunlight to only slightly spreading in low light conditions. Tepals are lanceolate to narrowly elliptic, 2-4 (-5) cm long, inner tepals more or less white and auriculate at the base, outer tepals more or less white and tinged (often strongly) with pink, particularly abaxially and along the midline; both inner and outer tepals have a yellow band at the base, become more pinkish throughout with age, and are darker on abaxial surfaces. Stamens are 1.3-2.2 cm long, the filaments white, flattened, linear to lanceolate, and 0.5-2 mm wide, the anthers yellow. The style is white, 1-3 cm long, the stigma deeply divided with slender, usually recurved lobes 2-4 mm long. Capsules are obovoid to oblong, 2-5 cm long.

Overview

Species Common Name Coast Range fawn lily
Species Scientific Name Erythronium elegans
Federal Listing Status Species of Concern
State Listing Status Threatened

Ecoregions

Columbia Plateau

The Columbia Plateau ecoregion was shaped by cataclysmic floods and large deposits of wind-borne silt and sand earlier in its geological history. It is dominated by a rolling landscape of arid lowlands dissected by several important rivers, and extends from the eastern slopes of the Cascades Mountains, south and east from the Columbia River to the Blue Mountains.

Special needs

The Coast Range fawn lily is found in a variety of habitat types, including open meadows, brushland, rocky cliffs, open to closed coniferous forests, and at the edges of sphagnum bogs.

Limiting factors

This species is endemic to Oregon’s Coast Range and is known from only a few sites. Plant collection, herbivory, fungal infection (e.g., from Douglas fir blight), and impacts to habitat from logging have adversely affected the Coast Range fawn lily. Coast Range fawn lily are also vulnerable to increasing temperatures and alterations to hydrologic regimes.

Data gaps

Evaluate current abundance and distribution relative to that which existed historically. Assess population genetics.

Conservation actions

Survey potential habitat for new populations. Continue efforts to protect known sites and monitor populations. Collect and store seeds. Consider reintroductions.

Key reference or plan

An interagency Conservation Assessment for Coast Range fawn lily was completed by the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management in 2009. (Cushman, K., R. Exeter, and M. Stein. 2009. Conservation assessment for elegant fawn lily (Erythronium elegans). Unpublished report by the U.S. Forest Service, Region 6, and the Bureau of Land Management, Oregon and Washington.)