Prairie Wake-robin Trillium- A Rare Flower

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Spring is such a good time to be tromping outdoors and into the woods. This year I am a woman on a mission—locating a special species of trillium that is found in only three places in Ohio.

While researching the natural history of Auglaize County, I discovered that the prairie wake-robin trillium (trillium recurvatum) was last documented locally more than 20 years ago. Now I have a new excuse for going afield: looking for the threatened plant.

Some two decades ago a state botanist found this special wildflower in St. Marys Township. It is not common to Ohio, so it is classified as threatened but not yet endangered. To date, prairie wake-robin is known only in Auglaize, Hamilton, and Clermont Counties.

But that’s not al! The plant’s celebrity goes back to 1897 when it was first documented by two people named A. Wetzstein and J.D. Simkins. The trillium gets its name because it has three leaves on the stem and three petals on the flower. It is found in woodlands around the time that May apple and trout lily appear.

There are many varieties of trillium but this week, large-flowered, drooping (or nodding?) and sessile as well as the prairie wake-robin were blooming in our area. The sessile trillium looks like the PWR but is much more common. Both have a maroon flower that sits atop the mottled leaves. Look at the sepals, the 3 leaves that covered the flower, to tell them apart. If the sepals are on top of the leaves once the flower opens, this is sessile trillium. The sepals point downward, touching the stem under the leaves for the PWR.

My husband Neal and I have gone out searching in woodlots near us and found both the PWR and sessile trillium in abundance. We find so much of the PWR that it is hard to step without crushing them. Expanding the search to Noble and Franklin Townships resulted in no new colonies of this special wildflower yet.

St. Marys Township seems to be the epicenter of the PWR. The challenge now is to expand the search to adjoining townships and counties to see just how far it may reach. If found in Mercer or Shelby Counties a new record would be gained.

There are over 600 recorded species of rare plants in Ohio. The botany community keeps track of findings such as the PWR. Last week ODNR sent botanist Tom Arbour from Columbus to verify our colonies and check historical sites where records show it was found before. According to Botanist Tom, “The status of a rare plant in Ohio is dependent upon how many USGS topographic quads it has been found on in the past twenty years. Now that we have documented it on four quads in St. Marys Township, Auglaize County, it means the status will decline slightly from threatened to potentially threatened. It will occur on 8 quads instead of 7, just making the threshold for potentially threatened instead of threatened. The Auglaize County population just happens to fall at the junction of four quads, even though it is still a relatively small and isolated population.”

If you have a woodlot that borders St. Marys Township in Mercer, Shelby or Auglaize counties, you can join in the search as a citizen botanist. Go to the Heritage Trails Park District web site for a picture of the PWR on the home page: www.htparks.org. Then head to the woods to look for this special trillium. I would be happy to join you in a search for the prairie wake-robin trillium. This is one more reason to love the place we live!