 Hi, I'm Tara Littlefield, botanist at the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves, and I'm here to tell you about the Trilliums of Kentucky. Trilliums are some of the showiest and most memorable of our spring wildflowers. It's hard to not love a trillium, this delicate little plant with its whirl of three leaves. It's really interesting flowers. Interesting and fascinating relationship with the pollinators and seed dispersers. I look forward to seeing trilliums every spring. It never gets old. Trillium is a Greek word for three, and this is a good description of many of the different parts of the plant itself. Three leaves, three petals, three sepals, two whirls of three stamens. So six total stamens, and then you've got the ovary in the middle there. Trilliums are in the Triliaceae family. They have formally been classified in the Lily family, the Liliaceae. There are over 50 trillium species worldwide. They are found in the temperate regions in North America and Southeast Asia. Trillium diversity reaches its peak in the southern Appalachians. Kentucky has 12 species of Trillium, making it the sixth most Trillium-rich state in North America, ranking behind Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Trilliums are divided into two main groups, the Cecil Trilliums, whose flower sits on top of the leaf, and the Pedicillate Trilliums, whose flower is attached to the leaf by a short stem or stalk. Okay, so we're in the Big South Fork and we're looking for different species of trilliums, and we just came upon two different species that are good examples of the two different types of trilliums that we have in Kentucky. So right here we've got Sweet Betsy. This is what we call a Cecil-type trillium because the flower is Cecil to the leaves right here. And they oftentimes call these types of trilliums toad shades as well because they're like little umbrellas or shades for a little toad, the size of a toad. So that's another name for these, but this particular species is called Sweet Betsy. It's more common in southern Kentucky, southeast Kentucky. Of course, we're in the Cumberland Plateau right now. It's one of the most dominant species of trillium that you find here. Sometimes they form these interesting hybrid swarms with yellow trillium on the slopes, and we're seeing that here as well. So this one's Sweet Betsy, and here's another different species that we have right here. This one is called the Southern Red Trillium, and this type of trillium, you see how the flower is on a stalk? We call this a pedicillate, the pedicil, pedicillate trilliums. So you have the Cecil-type trilliums with the flower, and then the stocked or pedicillate trilliums. So this was the Southern Red Trillium, and we've actually got a treat right here because it's actually being pollinated by these little flies. So if we got up close to this, it would smell pretty strong. I smelled another one that was being pollinated. This doesn't smell as stinky as the trillium erectum, so this is the Southern Red Trillium, Trillium sulcatum, and it is endemic to the southern Appalachians. The Cecil-flowered trilliums in Kentucky are Cecil-trillium, Trillium Cecilii, Sweet Betsy, Trillium cuneatum, Yellow Trillium, Trillium Ludium, Twisted Trillium, Trillium staminium, and Prairie Trillium, Trillium re-curvatum. The pedicillate-flowering trilliums in Kentucky are Stinking Benjamin, Trillium erectum, which has two varieties, Variety Albedum and Variety erectum. The Southern Red Trillium, Trillium sulcatum, Bent or Notting Trillium, Trillium flexipes, the Great White Trillium, Trillium grandiflorum, Snow Trillium, Trillium nevallii, Painted Trillium, Trillium undilatum, and the Least Trillium, Trillium pusillum. While the pattern of threes for trilliums can seem quite simple, trilliums are actually really complex in many ways, like their pollination strategies that use different smells to track flies, gnats, bees and beetles, and similar to other spring wildflowers, their seed dispersal relationship with ants and yellow jackets that are attracted to the oily fat, a liosome substance on the trillium seeds that ultimately leads to their distribution across natural areas. Several trillium species can form hybrid populations like the sweet Betsy and yellow trillium hybrids, and genetic abnormalities can sometimes lead to quadrilliums, leaves, petals and sepals with whirls of four instead of three. My family and I are trying to see as many trilliums as we can in a few days on spring break. Let's see how many we can find. I love to take a hike and just see all the trilliums, and I like to see all different types of trilliums because they're all really beautiful and all unique colors, and they all have their different smells, and I just want to smell them all. Hi, I'm Nestela, and I'm at the Ruff River Gorge. We have found a bent trillium here, and it had a normally trillium, the bent trillium, hangs under the leaves, and it's hanging under the leaves right now, and notice that the whole flower is white, even the pistols and the stamens, and it is a stock trillium, is a stock trillium, and so I'm going to see what it smells like. It smells like kind of sweeter, sweeter than this other trillium, and it smells like rind flash. Trilliums, and this one is white. Let's see, and what does it smell like? It smells like kind of honeysuckle-ish, but here to talk about ants, and I like to pollinate these, and because they're... All right, so we just found the Cecil Trillium, and this is the one that we've been looking for. It's supposed to have kind of a rotting carcass smell, a musky kind of smell to attract fly pollinators, so we're really excited about this one, and we're gonna smell it. So I am going to smell it and really see if it smells like rind flash. It smells like rind flash. It smells gross. Hi, my name is Estella. I'm at the Big South Fork, and I found a population of trilliums. This is a trillium, and it's really big, and it's called a sweet Betsy trillium. If you smell it, it smells sweeter than this other trillium. It smells like raw meat and rotten fruit because it has to attract flies. That's what pollinates it, but this smells sweet because it gets the name from it. I don't really think it smells sweet. I think it smells like frankincense. Bye. What do you think of it? I think it kind of smells like fruit. Hi, I'm Estella. I'm at the Big South Fork, and I have found a population of yellow trilliums. It gets its name from the yellow, the yellow petals, and I think it gets its name from the yellow because it like, well, just like a lemon, it's yellow, and it smells sour, like a lemon if you smell it. I kind of think it smells more sugary lemon, not just lemon. All right, so we've just found our sixth trillium. We're in the rough river area in Grayson County, and we're on this limestone slope, and we've found the prairie trillium, and it's trillium recurvatum, and what's unique about this trillium is that the sepals curve downward. That's where the species recurvatum is referring to, and all the other trilliums, they stick up and they're more petal-like. Three petals, and then the leaves actually kind of reduce, the petial reduces to the stem. So really exciting, and it doesn't really have much of a scent. Let's see if, let's smell it, Henry. Because it's pollinated by beetles that only attracted to the cob. We were able to find six trilliums across the Cumberland Plateau and Shawnee Hills regions. Thanks for joining us on this hike. We hope you get a chance to see some trilliums this spring, and don't forget to get up close and smell them. It will help you identify them and figure out what kinds of pollinators they are trying to attract.