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Sugar Hill: A Microcosm of Central Appalachian Ecology

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Trilliums

Trilliums (and the rest of the plants discussed later in this section) are not quite ephemerals because they hold onto their leaves well into the summer.  But they are not conventional herbs either, which grow throughout the year.  These plants tend to be bigger and showier than the ephemerals, and they also tend to bloom just a little later since they are not forced to do all of their photosynthesizing in a six week period before the canopy closes above them.  Every year I wait in fond anticipation for the first tiny Carolina Spring-Beauty flowers, then am gladdened again a few weeks later when the trilliums bloom.

The hillside above Oxbow Lake is so full of trilliums in April and May that I find it hard to have eyes for anything else.  At first, the sea of three-petaled white blooms above three-parted leaves seems to be made up of interchangeable units, until I peer a little closer and notice that these trilliums are not all the same.  Most are the common Big White Trillium that can be found in nearly any forest around these parts, but here and there Purple Trilliums are interspersed.  The latter species often sports a purple flower in other parts of the region, but in southwest Virginia a white variety is more common, making Purple Trillium hard to distinguish from its more common cousin.  The differences are subtle --- a purple ovary in the center of the Purple Trillium flower, smaller, more leathery petals, less voluptuous leaves.  The beginning botanist can sharpen his eyes by teasing apart the trillium species on the east slope of Sugar Hill.

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