Plant of the Week
Trillium viride range map. USDA PLANTS Database.
Trillium viride.
Trillium viride.
Trillium viride. Photo by R.A. Howard, Smithsonion.
Trillium viride. Photo by T.G. Barnes.
Green Trillium (Trillium viride)
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 appear to arise directly from the bracts.
Green trillium belongs to the sessile trilliums. Green trillium is a perennial herb that blooms from late April to May. The flower is quite showy sitting atop its mottled bracts.
This plant is typically found on very mesic soils to the drier soils deciduous forests. It grows in rich, mesic soils on rocky hillsides with an occasional limestone outcrop and humusy soil over stiff clay.
Green trillium occurs in Missouri and southern Illinois along the Missouri and Mississippi River.For More Information
- PLANTS Profile - Trillium viride, Green Trillium
- Flora of North America: Trillium viride
- Case, F.W., R.B. Case. 1997. Trilliums. Timber Press, Portland, OR.
- Jacobs, D. L. and Jacobs R. L. 1997. Trilliums in Woodland and Garden: American Treasures. 152 pp. Eco-Gardens. Decatur, Georgia.