Chattahoochee River wakerobin

Description

Trillium decipiens, also known as Chattahoochee River wakerobin or deceiving trillium, is a spring-flowering perennial plant. It occurs mostly near the Chattahoochee River in Alabama, Florida and Georgia. Scattered populations are found elsewhere in these three states, all within the Atlantic Coastal Plain or Gulf Coastal Plain. Rich deciduous woods of bluffs, ravines, and alluvial land provide its most favored habitat. Trillium decipiens is a sessile-flowered trillium, that is, it has no flower stalk. The flower has three purple, brown, or green (rarely yellow) petals that stand upright at the junction of the three strikingly mottled leaves. It is one of the earliest trilliums, often starting to bloom in January or February. Trillium decipiens is often confused with Trillium underwoodii but the two species are easily distinguished by plant height. In the case of T. underwoodii, the stem is 1–1.5 times longer than the leaves at flowering, whereas with T. decipiens, the stem is 2.5–3 times longer than the leaves. Trillium decipiens was first described by John Daniel Freeman in 1975. Phylogenetic analysis has since shown a lack of separation between T. decipiens and T. underwoodii, indicating the need to re-evaluate their status as distinct species. 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.