Trillium maculatum is a perennial, herbaceous, flowering plant that persists by means of an underground rhizome. Like all trilliums, it has a whorl of three bracts (leaves) and a single trimerous flower with three sepals, three petals, two whorls of three stamens each, and three carpels (fused into a single ovary with three stigmas).[7] It has a sessile flower (no flower stalk), erect petals, and mottled leaves.[8] Its flower petals are deep red or reddish-purple but occasionally yellow.[6]
Trillium maculatum was named and described by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1830.[3] The specific epithetmaculatum means "spotted",[9] a reference to the conspicuously marked leaves of some forms of this species.[10] Although Rafinesque described a plant with spotted stems,[11] later authors have not confirmed that character.[citation needed]
In his description of Trillium sessile in 1753,[12][13] the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus referred to an earlier description and illustration of a taxon published by the English naturalistMark Catesby in 1730.[14] However, Catesby's illustration was identified as Trillium maculatum by the American botanist John Daniel Freeman in 1975.[15] As a result of Linnaeus' misinterpretation of Catesby's illustration, numerous authors erroniously applied the name Trillium sessile prior to 1830.
Trillium maculatum is a member of the Trillium cuneatum complex, a group of eight taxa including Trillium luteum and Trillium cuneatum (in the strict sense).[16] All members of the complex are sessile-flowered trilliums (Trillium subgen. Sessilia).
^Kartesz, John T. (2014). "Trillium maculatum". County-level distribution map from the North American Plant Atlas (NAPA). Biota of North America Program (BONAP). Retrieved 31 March 2023.
