THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 43 



boredom, custom-houses, poor meals, bad nights, land- 

 leeches, rope-bridges and numberless horrors. He can, 

 however, in the cosy seclusion of his study, avail himself 

 of the travels and adventures of others. In these ecologi- 

 cal days he will in this manner greatly broaden hishorizen. 



Brown University, Providence, R. I. 



THE DWARF WHITE TRILLIUM. 



BY H. A. GLEASON. 



ONE of the rarest plants in Illinois is the dwarf white 

 trillium (Trillium nivale). It is fairly well distribut- 

 ed over the central and northern parts of the state, but it 

 is nowhere common or abundant, and the diminutive size 

 of the plant make it very easily overlooked except at flow- 

 ering time. And since it blooms in March, long before any 

 other flowers are out except hepaticas and a few of the 

 trees, it is only the early botanist that finds it. 



In my high school days I lived near a hillside on v^^hich 

 the trillium grew, and every spring I gathered a few of the 

 plants for mj^ collection ; for the high school student v^as 

 accounted very fortunate who could secure this plant. In 

 1902 I found a few specimens at a second station, grow- 

 ing with their constant associate, the hepatica. 



On April 2 of this year three of us from the University 

 went again to visit the trillium. A ride of thirty miles 

 brought us to Danville, and from there four miles on an 

 interurban and two miles across the fields, with some high 

 school boys as guides, brought us to the steep wooded 

 hillsides where our plants w^ere growing. The country 

 around Danville is generally level, but the Vermillion river 

 and its tributaries have cut ravines one hundred and fifty 

 feet deep and with very steep sides, while the land between 

 them is as level and flat as a prairie. One ma}' start down 

 a diminutive ravine and in less than a quarter of a mile be 

 in a dark canyon a hundred or more feet deep. These hill- 

 sides are covered with a dense growth of timber, principal- 

 ly sugar maple and red oak, and the ground is buried 



