Trillium is a genus of about fifty flowering plant species in the family Melanthiaceae. Trillium species are native to temperate regions of North America and Asia, with the greatest diversity of species found in the southern Appalachian Mountains in the southeastern United States.
Trillium
Diseased T. grandiflorum with virescent petals, extra petals, and other abnormalities
Trillium grandiflorum (great white trillium)
Ontario trillium emblem on an Ottawa courthouse sign.
Melanthiaceae, also called the bunchflower family, is a family of flowering herbaceous perennial plants native to the Northern Hemisphere. Along with many other lilioid monocots, early authors considered members of this family to belong to the family Liliaceae, in part because both their sepals and petals closely resemble each other and are often large and showy like those of lilies, while some more recent taxonomists have placed them in a family Trilliaceae. The most authoritative modern treatment, however, the APG III system of 2009, places the family in the order Liliales, in the clade monocots. Circumscribed in this way, the family includes up to 17 genera.
Melanthiaceae
Birth defects in sheep grazing on Veratrum californicum provided key insights into developmental biology in the 20th century
Trilliums (here Trillium cernuum) are fairly common woodland spring ephemerals in temperate North America and Asia