Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods.
Flowering Season - April-June.
Distribution - Nova Scotia westward to Manitoba, southward to
North Carolina and Missouri.

Some weeks after the jubilant, alert robins have returned from
the South, the purple trillium unfurls its unattractive,
carrion-scented flower. In the variable colors found in different
regions, one can almost trace its evolution from green, white,
and red to purple, which, we are told, is the course all flowers
must follow to attain to blue. The white and pink forms, however
attractive to the eye, are never more agreeable to the nose than
the reddish-purple ones. Bees and butterflies, with delicate
appreciation of color and fragrance, let the blossom alone, since
it secretes no nectar; and one would naturally infer either that
it can fertilize itself without insect aid - a theory which
closer study of its organs goes far to disprove - or that the
carrion-scent, so repellent to us, is in itself an attraction to
certain insects needful for cross-pollination. Which are they?
Beetles have been observed crawling over the flower, but without
effecting any methodical result. One inclines to accept Mr.
Clarence M. Weed's theory of special adaptation to the common
green flesh-flies (Lucilia carnicina), which would naturally be
attracted to a flower resembling in color and odor a raw
beefsteak of uncertain age. These little creatures, seen in every
butcher shop throughout the summer, the flower furnishes with a
free lunch of pollen in consideration of the transportation of a
few grains to another blossom. Absence of the usual floral
attractions gives, the carrion flies a practical monopoly of the
pollen food, which no doubt tastes as it smells.