Copyright © 2020 John F. Oyler
May 7, 2020
The Trillium Recurvatum
When my children were small we enjoyed participating in the YMCA parent-child programs, Indian Guides and Indian Princesses. I particularly enjoyed “playing Indian” and soon found my niche as story teller. Most of the traditional Indian stories for children were of the “Why the ….” Genre, such as “Why the chipmunk’s back is striped”, etc.
Typically in these stories some animal performs some beneficial action which is rewarded by the Great Spirit by being awarded some admirable feature or characteristic. Once my daughter Elizabeth and I got into the routine of telling such tales, we began to write our own.
The great Spirit rewarded the deer for alerting a peaceful tribe of Indians of the approach of an enemy by being granted a flag (its white tail) that it displays vividly each time it runs away. The redbird (cardinal) was awarded its distinctive crown in recognition of its helping a group of thirsty Indians find a spring of fresh water.
Our pride and joy was the story of the trillium. One spring we found a meadow full of trilliums (or is it trillia, or simply trillium?) while on a short hike at the Y camp at Deer Valley. The trillium is a distinctive spring flower, displaying three leaves, three sepals, and three petals in a very attractive arrangement. The common variety in this area is trillium grandiflorum.
Technically the three leaves aren’t leaves at all; their proper designation is bract. The bract is a leaf-like component which is associated with the reproductive function of the plant, rather than its vegetative function. It still looks like a leaf to me.
The typical common trillium has a sturdy stalk perhaps six inches long on which are symmetrically arranged three large green bracts. From the center of the bracts a stem several inches long then supports three attractive petals (white in this case), with three small leaf-like green sepals, spaced between the petals.
The combination of three bracts, three sepals, and three petals suggested a story that practically composed itself. It seems there were three Indian boys who were best friends. Each boy had a loyal dog, and each dog had a flea. One day the three boys disobeyed their parents and went wandering in the forest, accompanied by the three faithful dogs and their three fleas.
Sure enough a thunderstorm, a lightning strike, and the resulting forest fire trapped the wanderers, leading to their sad demise. When the Great Spirit learned of this tragedy He (She?) created the trillium in their memory. Consequently today whenever we encounter a trillium with its three petals, three sepals, and three bracts, we are reminded of the three Indian boys, their three dogs, and their three fleas.
Being a parent with young children at the time the story was composed, it seemed appropriate for it to be a gentle sermon on children listening to their parents. In retrospect I wonder if it would have been better if the creation of the trillium had been a reward for some positive action instead. Perhaps the three triplets gave their lives to save a larger group of their tribe.
Once we had learned about the trillium it was a real treat to find several colonies of them in the woods in our neighborhood. There is a portion of a south-facing hill, about fifty yards long, in which there are several dozen clumps of trillium that bloom in mid-April every year, an event that we anticipate eage.
About ten years ago, in the midst of one of the clumps we were surprised to see an interloper, potentially an undocumented alien! It was definitely a trillium, but one with significantly different characteristics. Instead of being solid green, the bracts were mottled with two contrasting shades. The petals grew right out of the bracts, without a separate stem. And they were maroon-colored, and curled inward rather than outward.
After considerable research I concluded that we were favored with a rare (for this area) variety, trillium sessile. It turns out that the term sessile refers to the absence of the stem between the bracts and petals. Several years later I learned that were other varieties with this characteristic and ours that probably was a trillium recurvatum, distinctive for the curling-in of its petals.
We followed this straggler for a number of years until a large tree fell right where the recurvatum usually showed up each April. Since then we have been able to find it. This Spring I found a note in my mailbox, informing me that the trillium were blooming but that she could not find “the maroon one”.
Being an octogenarian I am automatically “at risk”, and consequentially have been quarantined to my house and neighborhood, depending upon my daughter to do my grocery shopping for me. On the days she brings my groceries, she and I enjoy walking in our woods.
On such a walk two weeks ago we decided to make one final effort to locate the straggler. Elizabeth very quickly announced that she had found it. Sure enough, hidden behind a branch of a downed tree, is a small colony of our beloved recurvatum. I can’t imagine its having been there in previous years, although that is certainly possible.
I prefer, instead, to believe that the Great Spirit is aware of our current travails and that He/She has led us to this colony and provided us with a sign that better days are ahead. If indeed this undocumented alien has found a way to come back after all this time, surely we can survive today’s problems.
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