White and Greenish 



Early or Dwarf Wake-Robin 



(Trillium nivale) Lily-of-the- Valley family 



Flowers — Solitary, pure white, about i 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 ob- 

 long 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, i to 2 in. long, broadly oval, rounded 

 at end, on short petioles, fruit: A 3-lobed reddish berry, 

 about j^ 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 some- 

 times 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 sta- 

 mens, 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. Rarely do the parts divide into fours, 

 or the petals and sepals revert to primitive green leaves. With 

 the exception of the painted trillium which sometimes grows in 

 bogs, all the clan live in rich, moist woods. It is said the roots 

 are poisonous. In them the next year's leaves lie curled through 

 the winter, as in the iris and Solomon's seal, among others. 



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 (7". grandU 

 florum). Under favorable conditions the waxy, thin, white, of 

 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. At first the entrance to the 

 blossom is closed by the long anthers which much exceed the fig- 

 ments; and hive-bees, among other insects, in collecting pollen, 



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