Nodding Trillium, Trillium cernuum L. Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

	Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden
	Common Name	Scientific Name	Plant Family	Garden Location	Prime Season
	Nodding Trillium	Trillium cernuum L.	Lily (Liliaceae)	Woodland	Spring
Other names and notes	(Whip-poor-will flower). Like the other Trilliums, the flower is 3-part and with the stalkless leaves in a whorl of 3 atop a stem of 8 to 16" in height. Nodding Trillium has a 1-1/2" wide white flower with green sepals and lance-like petals, both of equal length. The pinkish anthers are not more than 1/4" long. The flower is solitary and usually nodding beneath the leaves on a 1/2" to 2" long stalk. The leaves are widely oval and with a pointed tip. Compare to Drooping Trillium where the flower droops but remains above the leaves. The fruit of the flower is a red oval berry. The plant grows from a thick rhizome which will slowly spread to create a clump of plants. Plant it in partial shade beneath the tree canopy in moist but well drained soil.


Above: Note the characteristic hanging (nodding) flower on a short stalk beneath the leaves; the lance-like petals and green sepals of equal length. Note also the pointed tips to the widely oval leaves. Flowers bloom in late April to mid-May depending on the season.

Notes: Nodding Trillium is indigenous to the Garden. Eloise Butler catalogued it on May 25, 1907. It was included on Martha Crone's 1951 Garden Census. The plant is native to Minnesota. The reported distribution by county is widely scattered throughout the state with most concentration in the northern half and with most absences in the southern 1/3 which is somewhat opposite of the Drooping Trillium, T. flexipes, which is concentrated in the SE section. In North America it is found from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Alberta eastward to the coast, but not south of the old Mason-Dixon line.

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References: Plant characteristics are generally from sources 15, 16, 30, 31, 33, W2 & W3. Distribution principally from W2 and also 31, 34 and W1. Planting history generally from 1, 4 & 4a. Other sources by specific reference. See Reference List for details.

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