Bashful trillium

Description

Trillium catesbaei, also known as bashful trillium, Catesby's trillium, or bashful wakerobin, is a species of flowering plant in the family Melanthiaceae. It is found in the southeastern United States where its northern limit includes the Great Smoky Mountains and other parts of North Carolina and Tennessee. Its southernmost natural occurrence is in Escambia County, Alabama. Most of its populations are in the Piedmont from North Carolina to Alabama, under deciduous trees such as American beech, various oak and hickory species, and tulip poplar. Like most trilliums, it prefers moist, humus-rich soil in shade. Trillium catesbaei is a perennial herbaceous plant that spreads by means of underground rhizomes. Stems are up to 45 cm tall, with white, pink, or rose-colored flowers that sometimes turn darker pink as they get older. Sometimes the flowers are hidden behind green or yellow bracts (hence the "bashful" part of one of the common names). Trillium (trillium, wakerobin, toadshade, tri flower, birthroot, birthwort, and sometimes "wood lily") is a genus of about fifty flowering plant species in the family Melanthiaceae. Trillium species are native to temperate regions of North America and Asia, with the greatest diversity of species found in the southern Appalachian Mountains in the southeastern United States. Plants of this genus are perennial herbs growing from rhizomes. There are three large leaf-like bracts arranged in a whorl about a scape that rises directly from the rhizome. There are no true aboveground leaves but sometimes there are scale-like leaves on the underground rhizome. The bracts are photosynthetic and are sometimes called leaves. The inflorescence is a single flower with three green or reddish sepals and three petals in shades of red, purple, pink, white, yellow, or green. At the center of the flower there are six stamens and three stigmas borne on a very short style, if any. The fruit is fleshy and capsule-like or berrylike. The seeds have large, oily elaiosomes. Occasionally individuals have four-fold symmetry, with four bracts (leaves), four sepals, and four petals in the blossom.. The tetramerous condition has been described for several species of Trillium including T. chloropetalum, T. erectum, T. grandiflorum, T. maculatum, T. sessile, and T. undulatum.