BurghByrd Loc: Pittsburgh

First some information according to the US Forest Service.

Forty-three species of trillium are known worldwide with a startling thirty-eight represented in North America. Within the United States, the bulk of Trillium diversity is found in the eastern states where Terrific Trilliums are among the favorites on many a spring wildflower walk.

ll trillium species belong to the Liliaceae (lily) family and are rhizomatous herbs with unbranched stems. Morphologically, trillium plants produce no true leaves or stems above ground. The “stem” is just an extension of the horizontal rhizome and produces tiny, scale like leaves (cataphylls). The above-ground plant is technically a flowering scape, and the leaf-like structures are bracts subtending the flower. Despite their morphological origins, the bracts have external and internal structure like a leaf, function in photosynthesis, and most authors refer to them as leaves.

The great white trillium is an herbaceous, long-lived, woodland, perennial wildflower with a broad distribution in eastern North America. This trillium occurs on well-drained, rich, mesic soils in deciduous or mixed deciduous/coniferous forests. Great white trillium occurs from southern Quebec and Ontario and then Maine west to northeastern Minnesota; through the central hardwoods to the Appalachian Mountains and thence south on the southern Appalachian Mountains to Georgia.

They flower from about mid April to mid June depending on latatude. My wife and I always look forward to finding these during our Spring walks. They are beautiful and fleeting like Winter's good buy kiss and to us signal the true arrival of Spring. I hope you enjoy the photographs. I was hoping to focus stack for greater focus depth but alas it was too breezy for that technique to work. These are what I was able to salvage from a couple of the shots. I hope you enjoy them.

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UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

Beautiful wildflower work!

BurghByrd Loc: Pittsburgh

Thank you.

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

Beautiful! I had never heard of this wildflower until I did a week in the Smokies. There I found it everywhere. It's gorgeous.

Reuss Griffiths Loc: Ravenna, Ohio

Interesting information on the trillium and a nice set of images. If you are fortunate enough to find trillium, you can be sure they are in a healthy forest without a lot of deer. If there are too many deer in an area, they overeat everything in sight. They do not particularly like trillium but will eat it if there is nothing else to eat. If you don't see trillium where you would expect, look for browse lines (all leaves on trees eaten up to about 5' off the ground by deer). I live in an area, Cleveland, Ohio, where there are trillium everywhere on the west side and almost none on the east side for this reason.

BurghByrd Loc: Pittsburgh

That's true. Perhaps the deer have congregated in the suburbs and are leaving the forest alone; we had 14 in our backyard a week ago. Pesky critters.

Irvingite Charles Loc: Irving, Tx

CCPhotoist Loc: Cape Cod

Nice set.