West Virginia Wildlife from Eyewitness News

Snow Trillium

The rarest and earliest of West Virginia's wildflowers.

April 2, 2008
Reporter: Patrick McMurtry
Videographer: Brad Rice

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"We're talking about going to see the first wildflower that blooms in the spring that we track."

We're off looking for the rare snow trillium and we're going to have to look hard to find some. These guys won't just grow anywhere.

PJ Harmon/DNR says:
"We know it in Randolph County, Pendleton, Grant, up here in Preston and there's one historical record in Cabell County, but the truth is it is a transplant."

So we go over a grazing area and down a mountain and, finally, we see one.

PJ Harmon/DNR says:
"Those are just coming up-they're tiny little ones."

"Here's our first tow, right down here. it's growing down here in the limestone. It's not very tall, it look s like these have been a little bit chewed on, so let's find some others that are a little thicker. See this-it's got 3 leaflets and 3 petals, pure white, like the big trilliums, only much, much smaller. That's the snow trillium."

And that means spring is here. These snow trilliums are the first wildflower that blooms, but unless you're in some remote area, you'll probably never see one. And even if you are, you have to be very careful or you'll miss them as they grow four or five together, right on the ground.

PJ Harmon/DNR says:
"They grown on limestone exclusively, you never see them anywhere where there is not an outcrop of limestone, the Hazelton shale, Greenbrier limestone. They seem to only grow around those rocks."

If you want to check these little beauties out, you better get up to the mountains soon, they only bloom for about two weeks. For west virginia wildlife, i'm patrick mcmurtry, eyewitness news.