trillium

White Trillium From Bud to Bloom in 2024 /  by Todd Henson

Rounded petals on a small white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)

My father and I were fortune to head out looking for trilliums when they just happened to be in peak bloom in Virginia on April 23, 2024. Granted, we’d visited the area earlier in April, knowing it was too early for trillium but wanting to see if there was any evidence of them yet. At that time there weren’t, but when we returned they were everywhere. I was like a kid in a candy store with only a quarter and so many sweets I wanted to try. I felt overwhelmed.

A very pink “white” trillium (Trillium grandiflorum), with mayapple leaves in the background

An emerging pink-toned white trillium bud

This glowing white trillium has narrower and wavy petals

Over the course of about an hour I managed to photograph a sampling of the flowers we found. Despite the different shapes, sizes and colors, I believe all of these are examples of Trillium grandiflorum, sometimes known as white trillium or large-flowered trillium. But please let me know in the comments below if you know otherwise.

Even a seemingly imperfect trillium can be beautiful

Light pink petals of a white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)

The trillium bud begins to open

White trillium, yellow stamens

Elegance of a white trillium

The bud becoming a bloom (Trillium grandiflorum)

The glow from within (Trillium grandiflorum)

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Blushing Young Trillium /  by Todd Henson

Blushing Young Trillium

Towards the end of April my father and I were fortunate to visit a location near what appeared to be peak bloom for white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum), a beautiful spring wildflower that is larger than most other spring wildflowers in this area. The forest floor was covered with flowers. It was overwhelming for me as I bounced from one flower to another, trying to find scenes that might make pleasing photographs.

I’m still going through my photos, but today I’m showing the first photo I’ve finished from this day. Instead of focusing on the trillium in full bloom I decided to go with one just opening, and to use as shallow a depth of field as I could, throwing most of the flower and background out of focus.

This particular white trillium has a lot of pink to it. There were a number of flowers with more pink than white in this area. My understanding (possibly wrong) is that they are all still Trillium grandiflorum, just with a range of colorations from white to light pink. Let me know if you know more about them.

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My First White Trilliums - Shenandoah National Park /  by Todd Henson

Blushing White Trillium

Trilliums are a very distinctive flower I’ve often seen in photos online but until now hadn’t seen in person. In late April my father and I happened to drive over Skyline Drive through a part of Shenandoah National Park while heading back home from other activities. Just after driving away from a pull-off we both noticed flashes of white in the woods and when looking closer realized it was a large number of trilliums along the forest floor. We turned around and headed back to the pull-off and I grabbed my camera and headed into the woods across the road.

Trillium all over the forest floor

There are times when I almost don’t know what to do, when I feel overloaded by what I see, taking me back to my youth when we’d visit certain large stores in Germany and find a Lego section that just stretched on and on and on. What do I focus on? There’s so much to see, I’ll never see it all. That’s how I felt around all these white trillium flowers in full bloom.

White trillium on leaf litter

The trillium and the tree

But I knew I didn’t have all day to spend here so I calmed myself and slowly began looking for those standout flowers or arrangements of flowers and carefully approached each one. As with many spring wildflowers, trilliums only bloom for a short period of time and so this was likely the only opportunity I’d get with them this year. I hadn’t planned on flower photography this day so I didn’t have my macro lens with me, carrying a single walkabout lens, a 16-80mm f/2.8-4 (thanks Alex). Thankfully it performed admirably and allowed me to create both closeups and wider views.

Unopened white trillium

Young white trillium

The white trillium, more formally known as Trillium grandiflorum, is native to eastern North America and seems most common in mountain forests, which is exactly where we found it. The flowers ranged a bit in size, though overall it’s a very large flower compared to most spring wildflowers I see. It has a distinctive shape with three white petals, three green bracts that resemble leaves, and yellow anthers at the center. The white of the petals can apparently grow pinker as they age, and I found some examples of this. There is also a specific variety of Trillium grandiflorum that is very distinctly pink and can be found in the Blue Ridge Mountains, but I didn’t see any of these on this trip.

White trillium in pink

My timing photographing these was very good as just as I walked back to the car it began raining and it wasn’t long before it was a heavy downpour with large gusts of wind. A little drizzle might have been nice to place some water droplets on the flowers but a heavy downpour with strong winds just doesn’t work well with flowers. I did photograph from the car while we drove through the storms, though, so perhaps I’ll share some of those photos in a future post.

Trillium grove

I hope you enjoyed this glimpse of white trilliums. We’ve done a little research and have learned of other locations we might find these in future seasons. I very much want more opportunities to explore photographing this fabulous flower.

White trillium family portrait

Have you ever seen trilliums? Let me know in the comments below.

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