Plant A Day – Toadshade

Toadshade
Trillium sessile

Toadshade is a cool name for a plant.  It is easy to picture a toad sitting under one of these plants just enjoying the day.

This plant needs to be distinguished from yesterday’s plant … Bloody Butcher.  They look quite similar until you look at them closely.  The leaves of Toadshade have no stems at all, and the sepals (the green leafy things right below the petals) grow upwards rather than downwards below the leaves.

Plants have the coolest names.  Birds are all red-bellied this and white-breasted that, but plant names can be a lot of fun.