Ozark wake robin is a rare trillium that grows in the southern Ozarks of Missouri. It lives in shady locations in upland hardwood forests.
Habit: As with other trilliums, this species is perennial, and there is a single flower per stem, with a single whorl of 3 leaves at the tip and a single flower at the top of the plant. In this species, the stem is dark green with a purplish tinge near the ground. The root is a thickened rhizome.
The flowers consist of 3 white to pink petals above 3 green, leaflike sepals. The single flower blooms at the end of a short stalk that raises it above the circle of leaves. The flowers have been described as smelling like dandelion flowers.
Blooms April–May.
The leaves are 3, in a whorl at the top of the plant stem, sessile (stalkless), dull or grass green, not mottled, ⅜ to 1 inch wide and 1⅝ to 3⅜ inches long. They are blunt or rounded at the tips.
Similar species: Missouri has 7 species in the genus Trillium. Ozark wake robin is rare and is easy to separate from our other trilliums by the following:
- Ozark wake robin has a very limited Missouri distribution, occurring only in about four counties in southwest Missouri.
- The flower color is white, pink, or purplish pink.
- The leaves are not mottled.
- It is the only trillium in southwest Missouri with a stem between the leaves and the flower. The other species in that part of the state have the flowers attached immediately above the leaves.
Height: 4 to 12 inches.
Uncommon in southwestern Missouri and locally eastward to Shannon County; a rare and local trillium, with most populations concentrated in the Cassville area of Barry County.
Habitat and Conservation
Occurs in moist to dry-to-moist upland forests on gentle slopes, usually in cherty soils on calcareous substrates.
Conservation efforts include habitat improvement, excluding cattle during the growing season, and monitoring. One population is protected on public land.
Status
A Missouri species of conservation concern, this plant is imperiled within our state and is vulnerable globally.
Human Connections
This rare wildflower was discovered by amateur naturalist Cora Shoop, who showed a specimen to botanist Julian Steyermark. He accompanied her to the site to study the plant. After this foray, they eventually married. Julian Steyermark became Missouri’s most famous botanist.
Ecosystem Connections
Trilliums use their leaves to produce and store energy in their rhizomes, so that they have strength to bloom again the next spring. Because trilliums only have 3 leaves, which are so close to the flowers, picking trillium flowers removes the plant’s ability to feed itself.
Ozark wake robin is a unique variety of dwarf trillium (or least trillium or dwarf wake robin, Trillium pusillum), a species known principally from the Atlantic Coastal Plain.
- It was originally described as a distinct species (T. ozarkanum), but now it is included among perhaps four different variations under species T. pusillum.
- Ozark wake robin has been distinguished from the other varieties by its taller stems, its sepals having 5 major veins instead of 3, and its preference for somewhat drier woodlands.
- Many botanists today lump var. ozarkanum in with a broadly defined var. pusillum.
