Trillium on Ruffner Mountain: A Volunteer’s Nature Journey

I am the pastor of Pilgrim Church UCC and have loved spending time on Ruffner Mountain hiking and experiencing nature in all the beauty and surprises of this nature reserve. Recently, when it came time for me to take a sabbatical from work, one of my first thoughts was to spend intentional time in the forest.

I spoke with Sloan Miles, Volunteer Coordinator at Jefferson County Greenways, and told him some of my ideas. We came up with the idea of doing a survey of the species of Trillium found in Ruffner. I was drawn to these mysterious and beautiful plants by their unique structure, their long-lived lives and the ways they reproduce that includes both seeds and rhizomes. I met with Sloan and Jamie Nobles, Conservation Director, to come up with a plan. On April 21 I began my adventure of walking the trails of Ruffner Mountain and East Side Park, uploading photos of Trillium through iNaturalist and recording the many habitats where Trillium flourish within the reserve.

If you are unfamiliar with Trillium, they are very different from most plants in the forest. Their structure looks like a stem, three leaves with a flower on top. Surprisingly, the above-ground plant is entirely a flower structure. Most of the plant is underground with roots and rhizomes growing out to 5 meters popping up new flowering stems. What looks above ground to be many plants growing across several meters of the forest floor can often be a single plant spreading below ground, sending its flower structures up to bloom and producing seed. Trillium can live for decades and grow slowly. They usually take up to seven years just to produce a flowering stem. The juvenile stems only consist of three bracts (what we would usually call leaves).

During my four-week hiking through the wonderful trails of the mountain, I was able to make 814 observations of Trillium on iNaturalist from almost every trail in the reserve. These 814 observations included 3,715 stems – 1,408 of them adult stems with flowers and 2,312 juvenile stems.

If you find yourself wanting to spend more time at Ruffner, I encourage you to consider volunteering for a project that expands our greater knowledge of the forest that can inspire others to visit Ruffner, like I did. Talk to Sloan about your ideas. He is a great resource for helping volunteers find ways to put our passion for Ruffner into revealing new ways why this restored wilderness is such a vital resource for Birmingham and the State of Alabama.

Interested in discovering how you can explore, learn, and give back at our greenspaces?  Learn more about volunteering with Jefferson County Greenways

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