Part 7

Distribution--New Brunswick to Florida, westward to Michigan.

From a many-jointed, thick rootstock a single graceful curved stem arises each spring, withers after fruiting, and leaves a round scar, whose outlines suggested to the fanciful man who named the genus the seal of Israel’s wise king. Thus one may know the age of a root by its seals, as one tells that of a tree by the rings in its trunk.

Early or Dwarf Wake-Robin

Trillium nivale

Flowers--Solitary, pure white, about 1 in. long, on an erect or curved peduncle, from a whorl of 3 leaves at summit of stem. Three spreading, green, narrowly oblong sepals; 3 oval or oblong petals; 6 stamens, the anthers about as long as filaments; 3 slender styles stigmatic along inner side. Stem: 2 to 6 in. high, from a short, tuber-like rootstock. Leaves: 3 in a whorl below the flower, 1 to 2 in. long, broadly oval, rounded at end, on short petioles. Fruit: A 3-lobed reddish berry, about 1/2 in. diameter, the sepals adhering.

Preferred Habitat--Rich, moist woods and thickets.

Flowering Season--March-May.

Distribution--Pennsylvania, westward to Minnesota and Iowa, south to Kentucky.

Only this delicate little flower, as white as the snow it sometimes must push through to reach the sunshine melting the last drifts in the leafless woods, can be said to wake the robins into song; a full chorus of feathered love-makers greets the appearance of the more widely distributed, and therefore better known, species.

By the rule of three all the trilliums, as their name implies, regulate their affairs. Three sepals, three petals, twice three stamens, three styles, a three-celled ovary, the flower growing out from a whorl of three leaves, make the naming of wake-robins a simple matter to the novice.

One of the most chastely beautiful of our native wild flowers--so lovely that many shady nooks in English rock-gardens and ferneries contain imported clumps of the vigorous plant--is the Large-flowered Wake-Robin, or White Wood Lily (T. grandiflorum). Under favorable conditions the waxy, thin, white, or occasionally pink, strongly veined petals may exceed two inches; and in Michigan a monstrous form has been found. The broadly rhombic leaves, tapering to a point, and lacking petioles, are seated in the usual whorl of three, at the summit of the stem, which may attain a foot and a half in height; from the centre the decorative flower arises on a long peduncle.

Certainly the commonest trillium in the East, although it thrives as far westward as Ontario and Missouri, and south to Georgia, is the Nodding Wake-Robin (T. cernuum), whose white or pinkish flower droops from its peduncle until it is all but hidden under the whorl of broadly rhombic, tapering leaves. The wavy margined petals, about as long as the sepals--that is to say, half an inch long or over--curve backward at maturity. One finds the plant in bloom from April to June, according to the climate of its long range.

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Perhaps the most strikingly beautiful member of the tribe is the Painted Trillium (T. undulatum or T. erythrocarpum). At the summit of the slender stem, rising perhaps only eight inches, or maybe twice as high, this charming flower spreads its long, wavy-edged, waxy-white petals veined and striped with deep pink or wine color. The large ovate leaves, long-tapering to a point, are rounded at the base into short petioles. The rounded, three-angled, bright red, shining berry is seated in the persistent calyx. With the same range as the nodding trillium’s, the Painted Wake-Robin comes into bloom nearly a month later--in May and June--when all the birds are not only wide awake, but have finished courting, and are busily engaged in the most serious business of life.

Purple Trillium, Ill-scented Wake-Robin, or Birth-root

Trillium erectum

Flowers--Solitary, dark, dull purple, or purplish red; rarely greenish, white, or pinkish; on erect or slightly inclined footstalk. Calyx of 3 spreading sepals, 1 to 1-1/2 in. long, or about length of 3 pointed, oval petals; stamens, 6; anthers longer than filaments; pistil spreading into 3 short, recurved stigmas. Stem: Stout, 8 to 16 in. high, from tuber-like rootstock. Leaves: In a whorl of 3; broadly ovate, abruptly pointed, netted-veined. Fruit: A 6-angled, ovate, reddish berry.

Preferred Habitat--Rich, moist woods.

Flowering Season--April-June.

Distribution--Nova Scotia westward to Manitoba, southward to North Carolina and Missouri.

Some weeks after the jubilant, alert robins have returned from the South, the Purple Trillium unfurls its unattractive, carrion-scented flower. In the variable colors found in different regions, one can almost trace its evolution from green, white, and red to purple, which, we are told, is the course all flowers must follow to attain to blue. The white and pink forms, however attractive to the eye, are never more agreeable to the nose than the reddish-purple ones. Bees and butterflies, with delicate appreciation of color and fragrance, let the blossom alone, since it secretes no nectar; and one would naturally infer either that it can fertilize itself without insect aid--a theory which closer study of its organs goes far to disprove--or that the carrion-scent, so repellent to us, is in itself an attraction to certain insects needful for cross-pollination. Which are they? Beetles have been observed crawling over the flower, but without effecting any methodical result. One inclines to accept Mr. Clarence M. Weed’s theory of special adaptation to the common green flesh-flies (Lucilia carnicina), which would naturally be attracted to a flower resembling in color and odor a raw beefsteak of uncertain age. These little creatures, seen in every butcher shop throughout the summer, the flower furnishes with a free lunch of pollen in consideration of the transportation of a few grains to another blossom. Absence of the usual floral attractions gives the carrion flies a practical monopoly of the pollen food, which no doubt tastes as it smells.

The Sessile-flowered Wake-Robin (T. sessile), whose dark purple, purplish-red, or greenish blossom, narrower of sepal and petals than the preceding, is seated in a whorl of three egg-shaped, sometimes blotched, leaves, possesses a rather pleasant odor; nevertheless, it seems to have no great attraction for insects. The stigmas, which are very large, almost touch the anthers surrounding them; therefore the beetles which one frequently sees crawling over them to feed on the pollen so jar them, no doubt, as to self-fertilize the flower; but it is scarcely probable these slow crawlers often transfer the grains from one blossom to another. A degraded flower like this has little need of color and perfume, one would suppose; yet it may be even now slowly perfecting its way toward an ideal of which we see a part only complete. In deep, rich, moist woods and thickets the sessile trillium blooms in April or May, from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Minnesota southward nearly to the Gulf.

Carrion-flower

Smilax herbacea

Flowers--Carrion-scented, yellowish-green, 15 to 80 small, 6-parted ones clustered in an umbel on a long peduncle. Stem: Smooth, unarmed, climbing with the help of tendril-like appendages from the base of leafstalks. Leaves: Egg-shaped, heart-shaped, or rounded, pointed tipped, parallel-nerved, petioled. Fruit: Bluish-black berries.

Preferred Habitat--Moist soil, thickets, woods, roadside fences.

Flowering Season--April-June.

Distribution--Northern Canada to the Gulf states, westward to Nebraska.