Toadshade is also called Sessile Trillium and Toad Trillium. Little Sweet Betsy is also called Large Toadshade and Whip-poor-will Flower. Toadshade and Little Sweet Betsy are quite similar in appearance but differ in size.

Stems are round, up to 10 inches tall in T. sessile, higher in T. cuneatum, smooth and green to reddish green - the base more reddish. The stem - a scape- is an above ground portion of the underground rhizome.

Leaves: In the true trilliums the leaf like parts are actually bracts just below the flower base. They are of course much larger than the normal bract found on plants, but they are equipped to fulfill the function of a leaf. On Toadshade and Sweet Betsy the stalkless bracts usually have a mottled appearance from different shades of green. The mottling can be quite pronounced as these photos show, or to a lesser degree. The bracts are very soft and flexible with a paler underside due to fine surface hair.

Flowers are solitary and stalkless, with 3 maroon petals that remain erect until they decay. The 3 sepals are green with purplish margins or more purple throughout, lance shaped and are at first erect, then lie downward to the top of the bracts. Variations in the plants can result in petals of various colors, T. cuneatum having the widest range of color including clear green, bronze and yellow.

In Toadshade (T. sessile) the petals of the flower are up to 1.5 inches high. The flower has 6 stamens that have reddish-purple filaments with gray-purple anthers, but the stamens are mostly hidden by the upright petals. Petal bases are more narrowed. The ovary is greenish-white at the base and more purplish at the top. It is composed of 3 united carpels forming a globose 6-angled shape. The 3 stigmas of the style are erect, purple, and the tips diverge or recurve.

In Little Sweet Betsy, T. cuneatum, the differences are: The flowers are taller - up to 3 inches high; petal bases are wedge shaped; the filaments of the stamens are more brownish purple; the ovary is maroon and less distinctly 6-angled and the stigmas are only slightly diverged or spreading.

The fruit of both is a 6-angled 3 cell capsule, pulpy, not juicy, that contains the seeds. The capsule is usually greenish with some purple tones depending on the species. The capsule is Sweet Betsy is the larger, being 2 x 1-1.5 cm in size. Trilliums are tedious to start from seed as they must have a cold moist period, followed by a warm moist period, followed by another cold moist period, each period of at least 60 to 90 days. Planted in soil, they will thus germinate in the 2nd Spring. Then they will take 3 to 5 years before they flower.

Other Visual Comparisons: One way to see the difference between the two species is the size of the bracts and size of the flower. Toadshade bracts are up to 3 inches long with a base that tapers and then connects to the stem with no appearance of a stalk; and the erect flower petals are up to 1.5 inches high. Little Sweet Betsy has bracts up to 6 inches long with a wedge-shaped base that almost forms a stalk; and the flower petals can be up to 3 inches high. There are also more detailed differences in the petals, stamens - particularly the anther sacs - and in the sepals. Toadshade flowers are said to have a pungent odor and while Sweet Betsy may also have such an odor, it is frequently pleasant and faintly spicy. More precise details can be found in Flora of North America (Ref. #W7).

 

Habitat: These plants grow from horizontal thick and fleshy rhizomes and will slowly spread if undisturbed. They grow best in somewhat moist soil in light shade or the dappled sun of the woodland before early summer. They do not transplant well. The plant dies back to dormancy by mid summer.

Names: The genus name Trillium, is derived from the Latin trilix, meaning 'triple' and referring to the flowers having parts of three. The species name of Toadshade, sessile, is Latin referencing "low sitting" which refers to the stalkless flower sitting atop the leaves (the bracts) of Toadshade, which is similar to Sweet Betsy but cuneatum has been applied there, which is also Latin, meaning 'tapering to a wedge shape', which is the shape of the base of the flower petals of Sweet Betsy whereas those of Toadshade are narrowed, but not narrow enough to be called "clawed."

The author names for the plant classifications: 'L.' refers to Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), Swedish botanist and the developer of the binomial nomenclature of modern taxonomy. He published T. sessile in 1753. T. cuneatum was published by ‘Raf.’ who is Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, (1783-1840), European polymath who traveled in the United States, lived here many years, collected specimens, and published over 6,700 binomial names for plants, this species published in 1840 in Autikon Botanikon. He applied to be botanist on the Lewis & Clark expedition but Jefferson turned him down in favor of training Lewis to act as botanist and saving the expense on another person.

The alternate common name of Whip-poor-will flower has been applied to many Trillium species, apparently because the Trilliums tend to bloom during the time that Whip-poor-will birds do a lot of singing. 'Toadshade' is somewhat self explanatory.

As to the name Sweet Betsy, it appears (no confirming evidence here) that this Trillium picked up that name (more correctly "Little" Sweet Betsy) for its resemblence to the shrub Calycanthus floridus, (Eastern Sweetshrub) which is known as "Sweet Betsy" and has an erect flower of similar color with some petals erect and rising above a group of green leaves.

New Family: There is a movement among botanists to segregate the Trilliums and a few other genera out of the Liliaceae Family and into the Melanthiaceae. The U of M Herbarium has made this change on their Minnesota checklist but Flora of North America has not yet published this.

Comparisons: Sometimes the common name Toadshade is seen applied to another trillium, T. recurvatum Beck, but that is considered a distinct plant and should be called Prairie Trillium whose bracts are distinctively on 1/2 to 1 inch stalks. The flower of Prairie Trillium is similar, usually not stalked, but the petals spread outward and then curve inward to touch at the tips and because of the bract stalks, the sepals hang downward. A further complication is that the Yellow Trillium, T. luteum, looks very similar to T. cuneatum except that the petals are yellowish-green.