Plant of the Week
Trillium stamineum range map. USDA PLANTS Database.
Twisted Trillium (Trillium stamineum). Photo by Hugh and Carol Nourse.
Twisted Trillium (Trillium stamineum). Photo by Dennis Horn, University of Tennesse Herbarium.
Twisted Trillium (Trillium stamineum). Photo by Mason Brock, University of Tennesse Herbarium.
Twisted Trillium (Trillium stamineum)
By Larry Stritch
All trillium species belong to the Liliaceae (lily) family and are rhizomatous herbs with unbranched stems. Trillium plants produce no true leaves or stems above ground. The “stem” is actually just an extension of the horizontal rhizome and produces tiny, scalelike leaves (cataphylls). The aboveground plant is technically a flowering scape, and the leaf-like structures are actually bracts subtending the flower. Despite their morphological origins, the bracts have external and internal structure similar to that of a leaf, function in photosynthesis, and most authors refer to them as leaves.
Trilliums are divided into two major groups, the pedicellate and sessile trilliums. In the pedicillate trilliums, either the flower sits upon a pedicel that extends from the whorl of bracts, “erect” above the bracts, or “nodding” recurved under the bracts. In the sessile trilliums, there is no pedicel and the flower appears to arise directly from the bracts.
Twisted trillium falls within the sessile trillium group and typically flowers from early to late March to mid-May. The petals of twisted trillium are a very deep maroon to blackish red, and purple-streaked.
Twisted trillium is found on a narrow north and south axis from west-central Tennessee south to the upper coastal plain along the Alabama and Mississippi boundary. They inhabit dry upland oak and oak-pine forests on alkaline soils and sandy soils along medium stream.
For More Information
- PLANTS Profile - Trillium stamineum, Twisted Trillium
- Flora of North America: Trillium stamineum
- Case, F.W., R.B. Case. 1997. Trilliums. Timber Press, Portland, OR.