PRAIRIE WAKE ROBIN 



(Erect Red Trillium. Bloody Noses 



Trillium recurvatum Beck 



April To many a child in the Illinois country, the prairie wake 



Woods robin means spring. To many a person, this is the only wild 

 trillium that is known, for the white trilliums of several 

 species are not commonly scattered over the whole state. In the middle 

 part of Illinois, where the oak woods predominate as islands in the oiice- 

 prairie cornfields and acres of soybeans, the prairie wake rol)in stands 

 somberly erect on an April day. 



This trillium has the usual trillium arrangement of three spreading 

 leaves; they are often mottled, much in the numner of the adder's 

 tongues, but with a less silvery sheen. The petals of the flower are 

 maroon and stiff, arched above the six tight black stamens which curve 

 over the pistil. Three stiff sepals bend crisply down until they clasp 

 around the maroon stem. This is the red trillium, a grim and almost 

 puritanical-looking flower, but it is nevertheless well known to country 

 children. The children of Xew Salem must have known it in their woods; 

 so did the children of Bishop Hill and Xauvoo and Kaskaskia and 

 Cahokia and Sangamo Town — children of those long-gone pioneer com- 

 munities may have picked b()U(juets of spring flowers and added to them 

 the lank stems of the prairie wake robin. 



It is as much a part of the oak woods in April as the sjiring beau- 

 ties, the dutchnum's breeches, and the yellow violets. These come to- 

 gether, bloom together, vanish together when May comes and June ap- 

 proaches, when the woods prepare for the coming of the shadowv sunnuer. 



