Trillium grandiflorum

A grand flower indeed! The Latin, scientific name in the title is succinct yet grandiose.

Today I give you the botanical description of the Large-flowered Trillium; words gleaned and gathered from various Botany texts, and rearranged into poetry form by "Father Nature":

Showy flower
two-to-four inches wide.
Three green sepals,
three waxy-edged petals.
Erect,
unbranched perennial.

One, large,
waxy-white flower.
Broad and solitary
on erect stalk,
above a whorl
of three broad leaves.

Leaves three-to-six

inches long.

Broadly ovate

to diamond-shaped.

Pointed,

nearly stalkless.

A single whorl

of leaves.

Three

at top of stem,

with prominent

netted veins.

Eight to eighteen

inches tall.

Flowering

April to June

in rich woods

and thickets.

Ontario east

to Nova Scotia.

South to

Georgia and Alabama.

North to

Illinois and Minnesota.

Trilliums thrive in this

rich, moist, woodland.

A lowland bordering

the Grand River.

The Lily family

carpets half an acre.



Six stamens

with yellow anthers.

Filaments stout.

Three stigmas

slightly spreading

or curving erect.



Largest and

showiest Trillium.

Welcome to sketch

in your Journal,

but Please...

do not pick!

Now, a long lesson in wildflower perseverance:

After two weeks, the white flower becomes pink, then shrivels.

Eventually, seeds develop and fall out from a splitting, ripe capsule. The seeds require two winters in the soil before rising above the surface.

For about six years, the Trillium produces only one-leaf and three-leaf forms; then it flowers for the first time. Then it blooms every spring thereafter, if it's in a stable habitat.