Trillium recurvatum

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Trillium recurvatum
Trillium recurvatum AR.jpg
In Little Rock, Arkansas, showing recurved sepals
Status TNC G5.svg
Secure  (NatureServe) [1]
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Monocots
Order: Liliales
Family: Melanthiaceae
Genus: Trillium
Species:
T. recurvatum
Binomial name
Trillium recurvatum
Synonyms [2]
  • Phyllantherum recurvatum(L.C.Beck) Nieuwl.
  • Trillium unguiculatumRaf.
  • Trillium unguiculatumNutt.

Trillium recurvatum, the prairie trillium, [3] toadshade, [4] or bloody butcher, [5] is a species of perennial herbaceous flowering plant in the family Melanthiaceae. [3] [5] It is native to parts of central and eastern United States, where it is found from Iowa south to Texas and east to North Carolina and Pennsylvania. [5] [6] It grows in mesic forests and savannas, often in calcareous soils. [7] [8] It is also known as bloody noses, [3] red trillium, [9] prairie wake-robin, [4] purple trillium, [10] and reflexed trillium, [11] in reference to its reflexed sepals. [11] [10] T. recurvatum is a host plant as well as food source for several insects and mammals. [12] [13] [14]

Contents

Description

Trillium recurvatum grows up to 40 cm (16 in) tall with three ovate to lanceolate bracts, mottled green, 6 to 18 cm (2 to 7 in) long and 2 to 6.5 cm (1 to 3 in) across, petiolate at maturity. [3] [10] The plant grows both individually and in clusters, though usually not in large groups. [4]

The flower has three brown to maroon petals that are 1.8 to 4.8 cm (1 to 2 in) long and 0.9 to 2 cm (0 to 1 in) across, with the petal tips arching over the stamens. [3] [10] The sepals are recurved, pointing downwards when the flower has fully opened. The anthers are also dark purple, up to 16 mm (1 in) long. [15] The stigmas are recurved at the tips. [15] It is distinguished from other sessile-flowered Trillium species, such as Trillium sessile , by its reflexed sepals. [10]

The fruit is green, sometimes streaked with purple or white, with six well-developed ridges. [15] The seeds have an oil-rich structure called an elaiosome, which promotes dispersal by ants and other foraging insects.

The pollen ranges in diameter from 15-26μm, and has a thin, bristly covering. [16] Like other Trillium species, the pollen of T. recurvatum is spherical, fragile, and has internal channels. [16] T. recurvatum pollen bears the closest resemblance to that of Trillium lancifolium, with both sharing many morphological features, although with somewhat different ranges in diameter. [16]

A spring ephemeral, T. recurvatum emerges in early spring, and becomes dormant in midsummer if flowering, and early summer if not. [17] [12] Younger plants, therefore, become dormant earlier than mature plants (roughly six to seven years old), which can remain in bloom throughout early summer. [4] [17] Mature T. recurvatum can also produce berries when pollinated, shortly before dormancy. [4]

T. recurvatum can reproduce asexually by spreading through rhizomatous growth, as well as sexually through insect pollination. [12] Because the species is self-incompatible, it relies on pollinators to deliver enough pollen to produce seeds, with this posing a greater barrier to sexual reproduction than deficiencies in other resources. [12] The plant produces a high number of seeds when pollinated, although very few grow successfully. [4] [12]

Distribution and habitat

T. recurvatum grows in the eastern and central United States, centered in Illinois and Indiana but ranging over at least sixteen states to some extent, from eastern Oklahoma to western North Carolina, north to central Wisconsin and south to southeastern Texas. [18] The plant can be found in deciduous forests throughout its range, although it especially prefers moister, limestone-rich soil. [4] [17] This includes ravines, floodplain and mesic forests, moist oak savannas (especially in Illinois and Indiana), and southern hardwood forests. [4] [12]

Ecology

T. recurvatum serves as a host plant for Clepsis melaleucanus and Euplexia benesimilis . [13] The species is known to be pollinated by insects, including Collops and Coleomegilla maculata , and provides food for ants, small mammals, and deer. [12] [13] [14] Several plant species which grow in conditions similar to T. recurvatum are commonly found along with it, including trees like Platanus occidentalis, Acer nigrum, and Tilia americana , as well as forbs like Podophylum peltatum, Arisaema triphyllum, and Sanguinaria canadensis , among others. [4]

Conservation

T. recurvatum is common throughout much of its range. It is not considered to be globally threatened, and its status is considered secure. [1] However, it is monitored by conservation agencies in several states at the edge of its range, where it becomes rare. For example, in Wisconsin it is considered rare or uncommon (S3) and therefore a species of special concern. [11] In Michigan, it is considered a state threatened species and is protected by law. [9]

Threats to T. recurvatum include habitat fragmentation and loss, overbrowsing by white-tailed deer, climate change, and invasive species. [12] [14] [19] The destruction of forests for logging and agricultural development has reduced the habitat available to T. recurvatum, although not to an extent which significantly threatens the species' survival. [12] [18] The overabundance of white-tailed deer leads to increased browsing and decreased growth and flowering in the plant, affecting studied populations in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Quebec. [14] Increases in temperature linked to climate change have caused shifts in the phenology of several plant species, including T. recurvatum, potentially disrupting their life history and negatively affecting survival. [19] Invasive species, including Vinca minor, Alliaria petiolata, and Hesperis matronalis , compete with T. recurvatum for space and resources throughout much of its range. [4] [17]

Related Research Articles

<i>Trillium</i> Genus of flowering plants

Trillium 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.

<i>Trillium erectum</i> Species of flowering plant

Trillium erectum, the red trillium, also known as wake robin, purple trillium, bethroot, or stinking benjamin, is a species of flowering plant in the family Melanthiaceae. The plant takes its common name "wake robin" by analogy with the European robin, which has a red breast heralding spring. Likewise Trillium erectum is a spring ephemeral plant whose life-cycle is synchronized with that of the forests in which it lives. It is native to the eastern United States and eastern Canada from northern Georgia to Quebec and New Brunswick.

<i>Trillium grandiflorum</i> Species of flowering plant

Trillium grandiflorum, the white trillium, large-flowered trillium, great white trillium, white wake-robin or French: trille blanc, is a species of flowering plant in the family Melanthiaceae. A monocotyledonous, herbaceous perennial, the plant is native to eastern North America, from northern Quebec to the southern parts of the United States through the Appalachian Mountains into northernmost Georgia and west to Minnesota. There are also several isolated populations in Nova Scotia, Maine, southern Illinois, and Iowa.

<i>Caltha palustris</i> Species of flowering plant in the buttercup family

Caltha palustris, known as marsh-marigold and kingcup, is a small to medium sized perennial herbaceous plant of the buttercup family, native to marshes, fens, ditches and wet woodland in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. It flowers between April and August, dependent on altitude and latitude, but occasional flowers may occur at other times.

<i>Primula <span style="font-style:normal;">sect.</span> Dodecatheon</i> Section of flowering plants in the family Primulaceae

Primula sect. Dodecatheon is a section of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Primulaceae. Primula species in this section were formerly placed in a separate genus, Dodecatheon. The species have basal clumps of leaves and nodding flowers that are produced at the top of tall stems rising from where the leaves join the crown. The genus is largely confined to North America and part of northeastern Siberia. Common names include shooting star, American cowslip, mosquito bills, mad violets, and sailor caps. A few species are grown in gardens for their showy and unique flower display.

<i>Paeonia brownii</i> Species of flowering plant

Paeonia brownii is a low to medium height, herbaceous perennial flowering plant in the family Paeoniaceae. It has compound, steely-gray, somewhat fleshy leaves and small drooping maroon flowers. Its vernacular name is Brown's peony, native peony or western peony. It is native to the western United States and usually grows at altitude, often as undergrowth in part-shade. The fleshy roots store food to carry the plant through the dry summers and produce new leaves and flowers the following spring.

<i>Drosera anglica</i> Species of carnivorous flowering plant in the family Droseraceae

Drosera anglica, commonly known as the English sundew or great sundew, is a carnivorous flowering plant species belonging to the sundew family Droseraceae. It is a temperate species with a circumboreal range, although it does occur as far south as Japan, southern Europe, and the island of Kauai in Hawaii, where it grows as a tropical sundew. It is thought to originate from an amphidiploid hybrid of D. rotundifolia and D. linearis, meaning that a sterile hybrid between these two species doubled its chromosomes to produce fertile progeny which stabilized into the current D. anglica.

<i>Trillium undulatum</i> Species of flowering plant

Trillium undulatum, commonly called painted trillium, painted lady, or trille ondulé in French, is a species of flowering plant in the bunchflower family Melanthiaceae. It is also known as smiling wake robin or striped wake-robin. The specific epithet undulatum means "wavy", which refers to the wavy edges of the flower petals. The plant is found from Ontario in the north to northern Georgia in the south and from Michigan in the west to Nova Scotia in the east.

<i>Filipendula rubra</i> Species of flowering plant

Filipendula rubra, also known as queen-of-the-prairie, is a species of flowering plant in the family Rosaceae native to the northeastern and central United States and southeastern Canada. It prefers full sun or partial shade and moist soil, but tolerates drier soil in a shadier location. It grows tall and firm, and produces blooms that are tiny and pink above its ferny, pointy leaves.

<i>Trillium sessile</i> Species of flowering plant

Trillium sessile is a species of flowering plant in the bunchflower family Melanthiaceae. The specific epithet sessile means "attached without a distinct stalk", an apparent reference to its stalkless flower. It is commonly known as toadshade or toad trillium. It is also called sessile trillium or sessile-flowered wake-robin, however it is not the only member of the genus with a sessile flower.

<i>Trillium cernuum</i> Species of flowering plant

Trillium cernuum is a species of flowering plant in the bunchflower family Melanthiaceae. The specific epithet cernuum means "drooping, curving forwards, facing downwards", a distinctive habit of its flower. It is commonly called nodding trillium or nodding wakerobin since the flower is invariably found nodding beneath the leaves. It is sometimes referred to as the northern nodding trillium to distinguish from Trillium rugelii, a similar nodding species native to the southern Appalachian Mountains. It is also called the whip-poor-will flower since presumably its bloom coincides with the spring arrival of the migrating bird with the same name.

<i>Geum triflorum</i> Species of flowering plant

Geum triflorum, commonly known as prairie smoke, old man's whiskers, or three-flowered avens, is a spring-blooming perennial herbaceous plant of the Rosaceae family. It is a hemiboreal continental climate species that is widespread in colder and drier environments of western North America, although it does occur in isolated populations as far east as New York and Ontario. It is particularly known for the long feathery plumes on the seed heads that have inspired many of the regional common names and aid in wind dispersal of its seeds.

<i>Phlox pilosa</i> Species of flowering plant

Phlox pilosa, the downy phlox or prairie phlox, is an herbaceous plant in the family Polemoniaceae. It is native to eastern North America, where it is found in open areas such as prairies and woodlands.

<i>Liatris spicata</i> Species of flowering plant in the daisy family Asteraceae

Liatris spicata, the dense blazing star, prairie feather, gayfeather or button snakewort, is a herbaceous perennial flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is native to eastern North America where it grows in moist prairies and sedge meadows.

<i>Asclepias meadii</i> Species of flowering plant

Asclepias meadii is a rare species of milkweed known by the common name Mead's milkweed. It is native to the American Midwest, where it was probably once quite widespread in the tallgrass prairie. Today much of the Midwest has been fragmented and claimed for agriculture, and the remaining prairie habitat is degraded.

<i>Pulsatilla nuttalliana</i> Species of flowering plant

Pulsatilla nuttalliana, known as American pasqueflower, prairie pasqueflower, prairie crocus, or simply pasqueflower, is a flowering plant native to much of North America, from the western side of Lake Michigan, to northern Canada in the Northwest Territories, south to New Mexico in the southwestern United States. Pasqueflower is the provincial flower of Manitoba and the state flower of South Dakota.

<i>Galearis rotundifolia</i> Species of orchid

Galearis rotundifolia is a species of flowering plants in the orchid family, Orchidaceae. It is commonly called roundleaf orchid and small round-leaved orchid. It is a succulent perennial herb native to North America, where it occurs throughout Canada, part of the northern United States, and Greenland.

<i>Dalea purpurea</i> Species of flowering plant in the pea family

Dalea purpurea is a species of flowering plant in the legume family known as purple prairie clover. Native to central North America, purple prairie clover is a relatively common member of the Great Plains and prairie ecosystems. It blooms in the summer with dense spikes of bright purple flowers that attract many species of insects.

<i>Delphinium exaltatum</i> Species of flowering plant

Delphinium exaltatum, known by the common name tall larkspur, is a species of flowering plant in the genus Delphinium, part of the buttercup family. Other Delphinium species are also commonly known as tall larkspur, such as Delphinium barbeyi. D. exaltatum is native to the central and eastern United States, where it can be found in Kentucky, Maine, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, and Missouri.

<i>Trillium kurabayashii</i> Species of flowering plant

Trillium kurabayashii is a species of flowering plant in the bunchflower family Melanthiaceae. The species is endemic to the western United States, occurring in extreme southwestern Oregon, northwestern California, and the Sierra Nevada of northern California. It was first described by John Daniel Freeman in 1975. The specific epithet kurabayashii honors Masataka Kurabayashi, a Japanese cytologist and population geneticist who first postulated the taxon’s existence. It is commonly known as the giant purple wakerobin, a reference to its conspicuously large, dark purple-red flower, one of the largest of any sessile-flowered trillium.

References

  1. 1 2 "Trillium recurvatum". NatureServe Explorer. NatureServe . Retrieved 16 November 2021.
  2. ↑ Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Case Jr., Frederick W. (2002). "Trillium recurvatum". In Flora of North America Editorial Committee (ed.). Flora of North America North of Mexico (FNA). Vol. 26. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Retrieved 19 April 2020– via eFloras.org, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, MO & Harvard University Herbaria, Cambridge, MA.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "Trillium recurvatum beck" (PDF). Michigan Natural Features Inventory.
  5. 1 2 3 USDA, NRCS (n.d.). "​Trillium recurvatum​". The PLANTS Database (plants.usda.gov). Greensboro, North Carolina: National Plant Data Team. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
  6. ↑ Trillium recurvatum web page from Vanderbilt Bioimages Archived 2010-03-17 at the Wayback Machine
  7. ↑ "Flora of the Southern and Mid-Atlantic States".
  8. ↑ "Prairie Trillium (Trillium recurvatum recurvatum)". www.illinoiswildflowers.info. Retrieved 19 April 2020.
  9. 1 2 "Trillium recurvatumBeck" (PDF). Michigan Natural Features Inventory. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 Tenaglia, Dan. "Trillium recurvatum L.C. Beck, Purple Trillium". www.missouriplants.com. Retrieved 19 April 2020.
  11. 1 2 3 Reflexed Trillium (Trillium revurvatum), Endangered Resources Program Species Information, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Sawyer, Neil W. (2010). "Reproductive Ecology of Trillium recurvatum (Trilliaceae) in Wisconsin". The American Midland Naturalist. 163 (1): 146–160. ISSN   0003-0031.
  13. 1 2 3 "Trillium recurvatum (Bloody Butcher, Prairie Trillium, Prairie Wake-robin, Toadshade, Wood Lily) | North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox". plants.ces.ncsu.edu. Retrieved 2024-10-22.
  14. 1 2 3 4 Pavlovic, Noel B.; Leicht-Young, Stacey A.; Grundel, Ralph (2014). Impacts of white-tailed deer on red trillium (Trillium recurvatum): defining a threshold for deer browsing pressure at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore (Report). U.S. Geological Survey. doi:10.3133/sir20145070.
  15. 1 2 3 Wilhelm, Gerould; Rericha, Laura (2017). Flora of the Chicago Region: A Floristic and Ecological Synthesis. Indiana Academy of Sciences.
  16. 1 2 3 Takahashi, Masamichi (1982). "Pollen Morphology in North American Species of Trillium". American Journal of Botany. 69 (7): 1185–1195. doi:10.2307/2443093. ISSN   0002-9122.
  17. 1 2 3 4 Tatina, Robert (2015-07-14). "Effects on Trillium recurvatum , a Michigan Threatened Species, of Applying Glyphosate to Control Vinca minor". Natural Areas Journal. 35 (3): 465–467. doi:10.3375/043.035.0309. ISSN   0885-8608.
  18. 1 2 Meredith C, Frances A, Highland A, Oliver L, Floden A, Gaddy LL, Knapp W, Leaman D, Leopold S, Littlefield T, Raguso R, Schilling EE, Schotz A, Walker A, Wayman K (2022). The Conservation Status of Trillium in North America. Hockessin, DE and Albuquerque, NM: Mt. Cuba Center, and New Mexico BioPark Society. p. 49. ISBN   979-8-9850471-0-3.
  19. 1 2 Augspurger, Carol K.; Zaya, David N. (2020). "Concordance of long-term shifts with climate warming varies among phenological events and herbaceous species". Ecological Monographs. 90 (4): 1–20. ISSN   0012-9615.
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