early flowering -Snow Trillium
It's the first week of March and a few things do flower this early, but not very many native plants. One of the cutest is the snow Trillium, T. nivale. Flowering early is quite usual, and so it pokes up through the leaf litter. This is also the smallest Trillium at about 3 inches tall and each whorl about as wide. it is easy to overlook, which TTP did for years until an early scouting trip surprised this botanist. Now it grows in our native plant gardens so its easy to watch for. This is one plant with 3 aerial shoots, a whorl of three leaves and a flower on each, and it took several years to get this big. OK this should have been a Friday Fabulous Flower, but I'm a couple of days early.