STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 
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with three large sad green leaves, two or three inches 
below the flower, which is composed of a calyx of three 
sepals, a corolla of three large snow-white or else chocolate 
red petals, the styles or stigmas three, ovary three-celled, 
and the stamens six (which is a multiple of three). The 
white fleshy tuberous root is much used by the American 
schools of medicine in various diseases, also by the Indian 
herb doctors. 
Trillium grandiflorum is the largest and most showy 
of the white species. T'rilliwm nivale, or Lesser Snowy 
Trillium, is the smallest; this last blooms early in May. 
May and June are the months in which these flowers 
appear. The white-flowered Trilliums are subject to many 
variations and accidental alterations. The green of the 
sepals is often transferred to the white petals in T. nivale; 
some are found handsomely striped with red and green, and 
in others the very footstalks of the almost sessile leaves are 
lengthened into long petioles. The large White Trillium is 
changed, previous to its fading, to a dull reddish lilac. 
PuRPLE TRILLIUM—BiRTHROOT—Trillium erectum (Lin.). 
(PLATE VL) 
** Bring flowers, bring flowers, o’er the bier to shed, 
A crown for the brow of the early dead. 
Though they smile in vain for what once was ours, 
‘They are love’s last gift—bring flowers, bring flowers.” 
—Hemans. 
Gray and other botanical writers call this striking flower 
“ Purple Trillium”; it should rather be called red, its hue 
being decidedly more red than purple; and in the New 
England States it is called by the country folks the Red 
Death-flower, in contrast to the larger White Trillium or 
White Death-flower. TJ. erectum is widely spread over the 
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