Trillium grandiflorum was first described by André Michaux in 1803 as variety grandiflorum of Trillium rhomboideum, a species now regarded as a synonym of Trillium erectum var. erectum. Michaux described the variety as having broadly rhombic leaves, large white petals, and black fruit. The epithet grandiflorum means "large-flowered", a name that well describes Michaux's variety. In 1805, Richard Anthony Salisbury elevated the variety to a full species. As a consequence, and partially by accident, Trillium grandiflorum is commonly known as the large-flowered white trillium.
Trillium grandiflorum is a member of Trillium subgenus Trillium, the subgenus of pedicellate-flowered trilliums. Along with T. ovatum, it is one of the closest relatives to subgenus Sessilium, the sessile-flowered trilliums.
As of November 2021, Plants of the World Online (POWO) lists 20 synonyms for Trillium grandiflorum. Although POWO accepts no infraspecific names, numerous varieties and forms have been described. Of these, perhaps the best known is Trillium grandiflorum f. roseum Farw., which was described by Oliver Atkins Farwell in 1920. The flower of forma roseum opens a striking salmon-pink instead of the more typical white. The pink color of the form is warmer and more attractive than the pink induced by aging. It occurs rarely throughout the range of the species, except along the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia where it is locally frequent. The epithet roseum means "rose-like, rose-colored", and so the form is sometimes called the rose trillium.
Trillium grandiflorum, unlike most trilliums, occasionally produces double-flowered forms with more than three petals. T. grandiflorum f. polymerum Vict., a multipetaled form described by Marie-Victorin Kirouac in 1929, occurs rather frequently in this species. Although these wild forms are stable and healthy, the plants usually lack normal floral organs and are therefore completely sterile. The epithet polymerum means "many-parts", which in this case refers to the many flower petals of the form.
Some variants of Trillium grandiflorum have abnormal green markings on the petals (floral virescence), floral organs that take on a leaf-like appearance (phyllody), or other abnormal characteristics. Many of these forms have been given taxonomic names with epithets such as albomarginatum ("white-margined", referring to the petals), foliaceum, ("leaf-like, leafy"), giganteum ("unusually large or tall"), and longipetiolatum ("with long petioles"). A typical example is the variety Trillium grandiflorum var. variegatum E.F.Sm., described by Erwin Frink Smith in 1879. The epithet variegatum ("streaked or spotted with color") refers to its virescent petals, a distinguishing characteristic of this variety. In 1971, it was shown that mycoplasma-like organisms (now called phytoplasmas) were present in all such forms examined (but not in normal plants). The authors concluded that “such plants should now be regarded as diseased T. grandiflorum and the varietal designation of Smith should be considered invalid.”
Unlike other species such as Trillium erectum, which hybridize fairly easily, Trillium grandiflorum is not known to form hybrids.


Trillium grandiflorum favors well-drained, neutral to slightly acid soils, usually in second- or young-growth forests. In the Northern parts of its range it shows an affinity for maple or beech forests, but has also been known to spread into nearby open areas. Depending on geographical factors, it flowers from late April to early June, just after Trillium erectum. Like many forest perennials, Trillium grandiflorum is a slow growing plant. Its seeds have double dormancy, meaning they normally take at least two years to fully germinate. The seeds are dispersed in late summer, germinating after a cold and then a warm period, producing a root and after another winter the seedling's cotyledon emerges from the soil. Like most species of Trillium, flowering age is determined largely by the surface of the leaf and size of the rhizome instead of age alone. Because growth is very slow in nature, T. grandiflorum typically requires seven to ten years in optimal conditions to reach flowering size, which corresponds to a minimum of 36 cm² (5.6 sq in) of leaf surface area and 2.5 cm³ (0.15 cu in) of rhizome volume. In cultivation, however, wide disparity of flowering ages are observed.


Some forms of the species have pink instead of white petals, while others with extra petals, also called "double" forms, are naturally quite common in the species, and these are especially popular with trillium gardeners. In fact, the species is the most popular of its genus in cultivation, which has led to conservation concerns due to the majority of commercially available plants being collected from the wild. A few regional governments in Canada and the United States have declared the plant vulnerable as a result. In Quebec, Trillium grandiflorum is legally listed as vulnerable primarily due to habitat destruction in forests neighboring the province's most populous regions. In New York, Trillium grandiflorum is exploitably vulnerable since it is “likely to become threatened in the near future throughout all or a significant portion of its range within the state if causal factors continue unchecked” (NYCRR §193.3).
Due to the popularity of Trillium grandiflorum as a garden specimen, conservation concerns have been raised as the vast majority of plants sold in commercial nurseries are believed to be collected from the wild. Indeed, there is little indication of any commercial nursery growth. Frederick and Roberta Case, botanists who specialize in trilliums, wrote in 1997, "to our knowledge, no true commercial quantity 'propagation' takes place at the present time." Such heavy collecting, combined with other pressures such as habitat destruction and grazing, may effectively endanger the plants in some areas.
As of October 2019, Trillium grandiflorum is globally secure. The species is vulnerable in Quebec, Georgia, and Illinois; and critically imperiled in Nova Scotia, Alabama, New Jersey, and South Carolina. In Maine, where its presence has not been verified in over 20 years, Trillium grandiflorum is listed as potentially extirpated.


Trillium grandiflorum has long been thought to self-pollinate based on the fact that pollinators had rarely been observed visiting the plants and because there is low variation in chromosomal banding patterns. This has been strongly challenged, as other studies have shown high pollination rates by bumblebees and very low success of self-pollination in controlled experiments, implying that they are in fact self-incompatible. Several ovules of a given individual often fail to produce seeds. One contributing factor is pollen limitation, and one study showed that open pollinated plants had 56% of their ovules produce seeds, while in hand pollinated individuals the figure was 66%. Plants with reduced exposure to pollinators were 33% to 50% less likely to produce fruits than those that were, while hand pollinated individuals showed a 100% fruit set (though these fruits did not contain a 100% seed set). Plant resources were shown to be a limiting factor in seed production: when pollen was in abundance, larger plants had a significantly greater seed to ovule ratio than smaller ones. The overall suboptimal seed to ovule ratios suggest that Trillium grandiflorum has evolved to maximize reproductive success in the face of highly stochastic pollination, where some plants may only be visited by a single pollinator in a season.
Trillium grandiflorum has been studied extensively by ecologists due to a number of unique features it possesses. It is a representative example of a plant whose seeds are spread through myrmecochory, or ant-mediated dispersal, which is effective in increasing the plant's ability to outcross, but ineffective in bringing the plant very far. This has led ecologists to question how it and similar plants were able to survive glaciation events during the ice ages. The height of the species has also been shown to be an effective index of how intense foraging by deer is in a particular area.
Fruits are released in the summer, containing about 16 seeds on average. These seeds are most typically dispersed by ants, which is called myrmecochory, but yellow jackets (Vespula vulgaris) and harvestmen (order Opiliones) have both been observed dispersing the seeds at lower frequencies. Insect dispersal is aided by the presence of a conspicuous elaiosome, an oil-rich body attached to the seed, which is high in both lipids and oleic acid. The oleic acid induces corpse-carrying behavior in ants, causing them to bring the seeds to their nesting sites as if they were food. As ants visit several colonies of the plant, they bring genetically variable seeds back to a single location, which after germination results in a new population with relatively high genetic diversity. This has the ultimate effect of increasing biological fitness.
Although myrmecochory is by far the most common dispersal method, white-tailed deer have also been shown to disperse the seeds on rare occasions by ingestion and defecation. While ants only move seeds up to about 10 meters, deer have been observed to transport the seeds over 1 kilometer. This helps to explain post-agricultural colonization of forest sites by Trillium grandiflorum, as well as long distance gene flow which has been detected in other studies. Furthermore, it helps resolve what has been called "Reid's paradox", which states that migration during glaciation events must have been impossible for plants with dispersal rates under several hundred meters per year, such as Trillium grandiflorum. Thus occasional long distance dispersal events, such as by deer, probably helped save this and other species with otherwise short distance dispersal ability from extinction during the glaciations of the ice ages. Furthermore, nested clade analysis of cpDNA haplotypes has shown that Trillium grandiflorum is likely to have persisted through the last glacial period in two sites of refuge in the southeastern United States and that long distance dispersal was responsible for the post-glacial recolonization of northern areas.
In addition to the lateral dispersion (by invertebrates and deer) there is also importance in the fact that burial (vertical dispersion) by ants (or other vectors) increases the survival of new plants by two mechanisms. First, vertical dispersion ensures sufficient depth to preserve the seeds through their dormancy (trillium seeds are normally dormant for their first year). Second, vertical dispersion ensures adequate anchorage of the rhizomes. This is particularly important for young plants because their small rhizomes, with few & short roots, are easily dislodged (e.g. frost heaveal and other erosion factors) and desiccated.


Trillium grandiflorum as well as other trilliums are a favored food of white-tailed deer. Indeed, if trilliums are available deer will seek these plants, with a preference for T. grandiflorum, to the exclusion of others. In the course of normal browsing, deer consume larger individuals, leaving shorter ones behind. This information can be used to assess deer density and its effect on understory growth in general.
When foraging intensity increases, individuals become shorter each growing season due to the reduction in energy reserves from less photosynthetic production. One study determined that the ideal deer density in northeastern Illinois, based on T. grandiflorum as an indicator of overall understory health, is 4 to 6 animals per square kilometer. This is based on a 12 to 14 cm stem height as an acceptable healthy height. In practice, deer densities as high as 30 deer per square kilometers are known to occur in restricted or fractured habitat where natural control mechanisms (that is, predators like wolves) are lacking. Such densities, if maintained over more than a few years, can be very damaging to the understory and lead to extinction of some local understory plant populations.


Trillium grandiflorum is susceptible to a greening disorder caused by bacterial organisms called phytoplasmas that alter the morphology of infected plants. Symptoms of phytoplasma infection include abnormal green markings on the petals (floral virescence), extra leaves (phyllody), and other abnormal characteristics. Infected populations occur throughout the species range but are prevalent in Ontario, Michigan, and New York.
For many years, this condition was thought to originate from mutation, and so many of these forms were given taxonomic names now known to be invalid. In 1971, Hooper, Case, and Meyers used electron microscopy to detect the presence of mycoplasma-like organisms (i.e., phytoplasmas) in T. grandiflorum with virescent petals. The means of transmission was not established but leafhoppers were suspected. As of November 2021, the insect vector for the disorder is unknown.
Phytoplasmas were positively identified in T. grandiflorum and T. erectum in Ontario in 2016 and later confirmed in 2019. Phylogenetic analysis supported the grouping of the phytoplasmas isolated from infected plants as a related strain of 'Candidatus Phytoplasma pruni' (subgroup 16SrIII-F) with 99% sequence identity. This subgroup of phytoplasmas is associated with various other diseases, including milkweed yellows, Vaccinium witches' broom, and potato purple top.


Trillium grandiflorum is one of the most popular trilliums in cultivation, primarily because of the size of its flowers and its relative ease of cultivation. Although not particularly demanding, its cultivation is a slow and rather uncertain process, due to usually slow growth, wide variations in growth speed and sometimes capricious germination rates. As a result, the vast majority of plants and rhizomes in commerce are collected in the wild, and such heavy collecting, combined with other pressures such as habitat destruction and grazing, may effectively endanger the plants in some areas. This also creates tensions between Trillium enthusiasts and conservation proponents. Transplantation (as with almost all non-weedy wild plants) is a delicate process, and in many cases results in the death of the plant. In cultivation, T. grandiflorum may flower in as little as 4 to 5 years after germination (compared to the usual 7 to 10 in the wild), but these cases appear to be exceptions rather than the rule. One study revealed 20 or so individuals performing so well out of about 10,000 seeds planted, only 20% of which germinated after a year. However, barring plant destruction, T. grandiflorum can continue flowering every year after it has begun. It is winter hardy in USDA zones 4-8.
A double-flowered cultivar, T. grandiflorum 'Pamela Copeland', was introduced to cultivation at the Mount Cuba Center and named for Mrs. Pamela du Pont Copeland, the center's founder.
This plant has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.


The leaves were cooked and eaten by some Native Americans. The subterranean rootstalks were also chewed for various medical purposes.


The large white trillium is a well-known and popular American flower. The Trillium species most often observed by citizen scientists is T. grandiflorum.
The flower's common name, wake-robin, was the title of American naturalist and essayist John Burroughs's first essay collection, Wake-Robin.
As a particularly conspicuous forest flower, T. grandiflorum was designated the provincial floral emblem of Ontario in 1937 (Floral Emblem Act), and as the state wild flower of Ohio in 1987. Professional soccer teams from Toronto and Columbus compete for the Trillium Cup every year.
As an official symbol of Ontario, a stylized trillium flower features prominently in the wordmark of the Government of Ontario and on the official flag of the province's French-speaking minority. Government agencies and programs also frequently incorporate the word "trillium" in their names, such as the Trillium Gift of Life Network (organ donation management agency) and the Trillium Book Award (an annual literary award sponsored by the provincial government). It is also frequently used by the Canadian Heraldic Authority to represent Ontario in grants of arms. Although a network of laws make picking wildflowers illegal in the province on any Crown or provincially owned land, it is not, unlike widely believed, specifically illegal (or necessarily harmful) to pick the species in Ontario.
The Baltimore Aircoil Company Trillium Series of industrial cooling equipment is named after the flower because, like the trillium, they consume very little water.


The grey-tailed tattler or Polynesian tattler, Tringa brevipes (formerly Heteroscelus brevipes) is a small, foraging shorebird in the genus Tringa. The English name for the tattlers refers to their noisy call. The genus name Tringa is the New Latin name given to the green sandpiper by Aldrovandus in 1599 based on Ancient Greek trungas, a thrush-sized, white-rumped, tail-bobbing wading bird mentioned by Aristotle. The specific brevipes is from Latin brevis, "short", and pes, "foot".
This tattler breeds in northeast Siberia. After breeding, they migrate to an area from southeast Asia to Australia.


The grey-tailed tattler is closely related to its North American counterpart, the wandering tattler (T. incana) and is difficult to distinguish from that species. Both tattlers are unique among the species of Tringa for having unpatterned, greyish wings and back, and a scaly breast pattern extending more or less onto the belly in breeding plumage, in which both also have a rather prominent supercilium.
These birds resemble common redshanks in shape and size. The upper parts, underwings, face and neck are grey, and the belly is white. They have short yellowish legs and a bill with a pale base and dark tip. There is a weak supercilium.
They are very similar to their American counterpart, and differentiation depends on details like the length of the nasal groove and scaling on the tarsus. The best distinction is the call; grey-tailed has a disyllabic whistle, and wandering a rippling trill.


Grey-tailed tattlers are not listed as "threatened" on the Australian Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
The grey-tailed tattler is listed as "threatened" on the Victorian Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act (1988). Under this Act, an Action Statement for the recovery and future management of this species has not been prepared. On the 2007 advisory list of threatened vertebrate fauna in Victoria, the grey-tailed tattler is listed as critically endangered.


The spotted redshank (Tringa erythropus) is a wader (shorebird) in the large bird family Scolopacidae. The genus name Tringa is the New Latin name given to the green sandpiper by Aldrovandus in 1599 based on Ancient Greek trungas, a thrush-sized, white-rumped, tail-bobbing wading bird mentioned by Aristotle. The specific erythropus is from Ancient Greek eruthros, "red", and pous, "foot".
It breeds across northern Scandinavia and the northern Palearctic and migrates south to the Mediterranean, the southern British Isles, France, tropical Africa, and tropical Asia for the winter. It is an occasional vagrant to Australia and North America.


The spotted redshank was described by German zoologist Peter Simon Pallas in 1764 and given the binomial name Scolopax erythropus.
It is a monotypic species, with no recognised subspecies. Taxonomically, it forms a close-knit group with several other large Tringa species, with molecular sequencing showing it to be a sister clade to that containing the greater yellowlegs and the common greenshank.


This is a large wader (shorebird), measuring 29–31 cm (11–12 in) long, with a wingspan of 61–67 cm (24–26 in) and a weight ranging from 121 to 205 g (4.3 to 7.2 oz). It is black in breeding plumage, and very pale in winter. It has a red legs and bill, and shows a white oval on the back in flight. Juveniles are grey-brown finely speckled white above, and have pale, finely barred underparts.
Adults moult completely between July and October. In spring, the body plumage is moulted between March and May. Juveniles have a partial moult between August and February.
The call is a creaking whistle teu-it (somewhat similar to the call of a roseate tern), the alarm call a kyip-kyip-kyip.


The spotted redshank breeds in the Arctic across much of the Palearctic, from Lapland in the west to Chukotskaya in the east.


The lesser yellowlegs (Tringa flavipes) is a medium-sized shorebird. The genus name Tringa is the New Latin name given to the green sandpiper by Aldrovandus in 1599 based on Ancient Greek trungas, a thrush-sized, white-rumped, tail-bobbing wading bird mentioned by Aristotle. The specific flavipes is from Latin flavus, "yellow", and pes, "foot".


The lesser yellowlegs is a medium-large shorebird. The legs are yellow. Compared to the greater yellowlegs, the bill is shorter (visually about the same length as the head), slim, straight, and uniformly dark. The breast is streaked and the flanks are finely marked with short bars.
Measurements:
Length: 9.1-10.6 in (23-27 cm)
Weight: 2.8-3.2 oz (79.5-90.9 g)
Wingspan: 23.2-25.2 in (59-64 cm)


The call of this bird is softer than that of the greater yellowlegs.


The wandering tattler (Tringa incana; formerly Heteroscelus incanus: Pereira & Baker, 2005; Banks et al., 2006), is a medium-sized wading bird. It is similar in appearance to the closely related gray-tailed tattler, T. brevipes. The tattlers are unique among the species of Tringa for having unpatterned, greyish wings and backs, and a scaly breast pattern extending more or less onto the belly in breeding plumage, in which both also have a rather prominent supercilium.
These birds have stocky bodies with gray upperparts, underwings, face and neck and a white belly. They have short dark yellow legs and a dark gray bill. Adults in breeding plumage are heavily barred underneath.
In summer, they are found in far-eastern Russia, Alaska, portions of the California coast and northwestern Canada. They nest in rocky areas along mountain streams. At other times, they are found on rocky islands in the southwest Pacific and on rocky Pacific coasts from California to South America and as far as Australia.
They feed on aquatic invertebrates such as crustaceans and marine worms. During breeding season, they also eat insects. While wading, they forage actively, making jerky bobbing movements.
Feeding behaviors can include repeated returns to the same location over short periods of time.  They can be seen flying low over a rocky coastline or along a jetty.
The female lays 4 olive-colored eggs in a shallow depression. Both parents incubate and help feed the young, who are soon able to forage for themselves.
The call is a rapid trill of accelerating, staccato notes.  They can consist of 3 or 4 beats, per call.


In the nonbreeding season, the wandering tattler is well distributed throughout the Pacific, often seeking coastlines and isolated islands.


The common greenshank (Tringa nebularia) is a wader in the large family Scolopacidae, the typical waders. The genus name Tringa is the New Latin name given to the green sandpiper by Aldrovandus in 1599 based on Ancient Greek trungas, a thrush-sized, white-rumped, tail-bobbing wading bird mentioned by Aristotle. The specific nebularia is from Latin nebula "mist". Like the Norwegian Skoddefoll, this refers to the greenshank's damp marshy habitat.


Its closest relative is the greater yellowlegs, which together with the spotted redshank form a close-knit group. Among them, these three species show all the basic leg and foot colours found in the shanks, demonstrating that this character is paraphyletic. They are also the largest shanks apart from the willet, which is altogether more robustly built. The greater yellowlegs and the common greenshank share a coarse, dark, and fairly crisp breast pattern as well as much black on the shoulders and back in breeding plumage.


Common greenshanks are brown in breeding plumage, and grey-brown in winter. When in water, they can appear very similar to marsh sandpipers but are distinguished by the shape of the lower bill which gives it an upturned appearance to the bill. They have long greenish legs and a long bill with a grey base. They show a white wedge on the back in flight. They are somewhat larger than the related common redshank. The usual call is a rapid series of three short fluty notes syllabilized as teu-teu-teu.
Like most waders, they feed on small invertebrates, but will also take small fish and amphibians.
The common greenshank is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.


The willet (Tringa semipalmata), formerly in the monotypic genus Catoptrophorus as Catoptrophorus semipalmatus, is a large shorebird in the family Scolopacidae. It is a relatively large and robust sandpiper, and is the largest of the species called "shanks" in the genus Tringa. Its closest relative is the lesser yellowlegs, a much smaller bird with a very different appearance apart from the fine, clear, and dense pattern of the neck, which both species show in breeding plumage. It breeds in North America and the West Indies and winters in southern North America, Central America, the West Indies and South America.


The willet was formerly regarded as being in the monotypic genus Catoptrophorus but recent studies indicate that it is better placed with the "shanks" of the genus Tringa. It has been suggested that the two subspecies be treated as separate species as there are clear differences in distribution, behavior, morphology and genetics but this has yet to  be widely adopted.
The two subspecies are:
T. s. inornata (Brewster, 1887): breeds from the Prairie Provinces of Canada south to northeastern California, northern Colorado and western Nebraska; winters mainly on the Pacific coasts from the southern United States from coastal S USA to northern South America as far south as northern Chile. Some winter on the Atlantic coast southwards from the southern United States.
T. s. semipalmata (Gmelin, 1789): breeds from southern Newfoundland and along the Atlantic coast of the United States into the Gulf of Mexico, including the Caribbean Islands; winters in the West Indies and along the eastern coast of South America as far south as southern Brazil and Argentina. There are no documented records of this taxon wintering in the United States.
The willet is a very rare vagrant to Europe with records from the Azores, mainland Portugal, France, Norway and Finland. The Portuguese record from Alcochete near Lisbon on 29 April 2009 showed characteristics of the Eastern willet.


The willet is an inelegant and heavily built shorebird with a structure similar to that of the common redshank but being larger in size than the greater yellowlegs while resembling a godwit in flight with black primary coverts and primaries contrasting with a broad white band, white secondaries with a white rump and gray tail band. With its reclassification into the Tringa genus, it stands as the largest species in this prominent sandpiper genus.
The black underwing coverts may be conspicuous in flight. Willets are identified on the ground by their gray legs and shortish, heavy but straight bill.
The plumage is gray above with a white rump, and white below with a distinct white area above the lores and a narrow whitish eye ring giving the bird a spectacled appearance. The underparts are white.
In breeding plumage the bird shows brown barring on the upperparts. Non-breeding birds are plainer.
Measurements:
Length: 13.0-16.1 in (33-41 cm)
Weight: 7.0-11.6 oz (200-330 g)
Wingspan: 27.6 in (70 cm)


The willet's name is onomatopoeic and refers to its loud piercing "pill-will-willet" territorial song., which is higher pitched and repeated at a faster rate in Eastern willets than in Western birds. Other calls include a predator response call given by breeding birds which is a repeated, staccato "kleep", while non breeding birds alarms include a high, pitched anxious "kip-kip-viek" call and a "kreei" call. They also have a distinctive call when crossing another willet's territory and this "klay-dir" call is also used as a contact call when willets are migrating.


Two subspecies (which may actually be different species) have very different breeding habitats. The eastern willet breeds in coastal saltmarshes while the western willet breeds in freshwater prairie marshes, sloughs, potholes and other inland wetlands. In winter both subspecies are coastal birds being found on both rocky and sandy coasts as well as on mudflats and in coastal marshes.


Willets are flexible in their feeding habits and hunt by walking steadily and pecking prey from the substrate, although they also probe into the mud or silt with their sensitive bill and may actively stalk larger prey in shallow water. A favored prey on the coasts are small fiddler crabs as well as mole crabs, worms, clams and other invertebrates.  They have also been known to occasionally eat plant material. Willets also actively hunt more mobile prey such as fish and aquatic insects in the water and will wade up to their bellies to pursue such prey. The sensitive bill means that willets can hunt at night as well as during the day. They are territorial both on the breeding grounds and on the wintering areas but form loose breeding colonies or wintering groups. When displaying the wings are held stiffly and downcurved in flight while on the ground the display gives prominence to the distinctive pattern of the underwings. They are normally nervous birds, with the birds closer to the landward edge of a saltmarsh being the first to utter their alarm calls, in a manner reminiscent of the common redshank in Europe, although some individuals may be approachable. They often use rocks, trees or fence posts to perch on.
The male normally leads the female through the territory and creates trial nest scrapes for the female to consider until she selects the site. The nest is a shallow depression is scraped out by the birds using their feet and breast, it measures 15 cm across and 5 cm deep. It is placed among grass close to the waters edge in western willets and in saltmarsh or sand dunes in eastern willets. If the nest is placed among grass the female may pull grass stalks over the nest for camouflage. Fine grass leaves and small pebbles may be used to line the nest and grass lining may be brought from some distance where the nest is on bare ground. The male and female may form a long term monogamous bond and return to the same territory in successive breeding seasons. The male defends the territory from other willets, challenging his neighbors with a ritualized walk along the mutual boundary of their territory, and often this leads to fights. Both sexes incubate the eggs for 22–29 days, although the male tends to incubate at night, the female departs from the territory before the precocial young are fledged leaving them in the care of the male for the last two weeks or so before they fledge.


The willet is still common in some parts of its range despite an apparent decline since the 1960s and it is considered to be a species which is at risk of becoming threatened or endangered without conservation action. The western subspecies is threatened by the conversion of native grasslands and drainage of wetlands for agriculture while the wintering habitat has been degraded locally in California by coastal development. Willets are also vulnerable to being killed by colliding with power lines laid through their wetland breeding areas. The passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in 1918 protected the willet from intensive exploitation by hunters for food and allowed its numbers to rebound to present levels. There are a total of 250,000 willets in North America, of which 150,000 were counted from the western flyway, and 90,000 in the eastern. Since the Western willet winters in the east then that means that there are probably much less than 90,000 Eastern willets.


The solitary sandpiper (Tringa solitaria) is a small shorebird. The genus name Tringa is the New Latin name given to the green sandpiper by Aldrovandus in 1599 based on Ancient Greek trungas, a thrush-sized, white-rumped, tail-bobbing wading bird mentioned by Aristotle. The specific solitaria is Latin for "solitary" from solus, "alone".


This species measures 18–23 cm (7.1–9.1 in) long, with a wingspan up to 50 cm (20 in) and a body mass of 31–65 g (1.1–2.3 oz). It is a dumpy wader with a dark green back, greyish head and breast and otherwise white underparts. It is obvious in flight, with wings dark above and below, and a dark rump and tail centre. The latter feature distinguishes it from the slightly larger and broader-winged, but otherwise very similar, green sandpiper of Europe and Asia, to which it is closely related. The latter species has a brilliant white rump. In flight, the solitary sandpiper has a characteristic three-note whistle. They both have brown wings with little light dots, and a delicate but contrasting neck and chest pattern. In addition, both species nest in trees, unlike most other scolopacids.


It breeds in woodlands across Alaska and Canada. It is a migratory bird, wintering in Central and South America, especially in the Amazon River basin, and the Caribbean. It is a very rare vagrant to western Europe, and goes there in the summer-autumn period.


The solitary sandpiper is split into two subspecies:
T. s. cinnamomea, (Brewster, 1890): breeds in Alaska & western Canada
T. s. solitaria, (Wilson, 1813): breeds from eastern British Columbia to Labrador


As its name indicates, the solitary sandpiper is not a gregarious species, usually seen alone during migration, although sometimes small numbers congregate in suitable feeding areas. The solitary sandpiper is very much a bird of fresh water, and is often found in sites, such as ditches, too restricted for other waders, which tend to like a clear all-round view.


The marsh sandpiper (Tringa stagnatilis) is a small wader. It is a rather small shank, and breeds in open grassy steppe and taiga wetlands from easternmost Europe to the Russian Far East. The genus name Tringa is the New Latin name given to the green sandpiper by Aldrovandus in 1599 based on Ancient Greek trungas, a thrush-sized, white-rumped, tail-bobbing wading bird mentioned by Aristotle. The specific stagnatilis is from Latin stagnum, "swamp".


The marsh sandpiper resembles a small elegant greenshank, with a long fine bill and very long yellowish legs. Like the greenshank, it is greyish brown in breeding plumage, paler in winter, and has a white wedge up its back that is visible in flight. However, it is more closely related to the common redshank and the wood sandpiper. Together, they form a group of smallish shanks which tend to have red or reddish legs, and in breeding plumage are generally a subdued, light brown above with some darker mottling, with a pattern of somewhat diffuse small brownish spots on the breast and neck. The length is 22–26 cm (8.7–10.2 in), wingspan is 55–59 cm (22–23 in) and weight is 45–120 g (1.6–4.2 oz).


The marsh sandpiper breeds in the Palearctic. It is a migratory species, with a majority of birds wintering in Africa and India, and some migrating to Southeast Asia and Australia. They prefer to winter on fresh water wetlands such as swamps and lakes and are usually seen singly or in small groups.
Marsh sandpipers are rare vagrants to North America, with most records in Alaska and California. The first marsh sandpiper recorded in Canada was found on 30 April 2022 in Thedford, Lambton County, Ontario by James Holdsworth, and attracted over a thousand birders from Ontario and Michigan, as well as birders from as far away as Texas and Washington State.
The marsh sandpiper is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.


Triodanis biflora is a species of flowering plant native to the Americas and known commonly as small Venus' looking-glass. The flower is solitary and has a bell-shaped blue or purple corolla. Its leaf arrangement is alternate and its leaf type is simple.  Its leaves are thin, serrate and sessile.


Triopha catalinae, commonly known as the sea clown triopha or sea clown, is a species of colorful sea slug called a nudibranch. Sea clowns are a  shell-less marine, gastronomic mollusk in the taxonomic family Polyceridae.
The species' Latin name is named after Santa Catalina Island, California.


This species lives in the Western Pacific from Alaska to Mexico, and has also been found in Japan and South Korea.


Triphysaria eriantha is a species of flowering plant in the family Orobanchaceae, known by the common names johnny-tuck and butter-and-eggs.
It is native to California and southwestern Oregon, where it grows in many types of habitats including chaparral, becoming quite common in some areas.


Triphysaria eriantha is an annual herb producing a hairy purple stem up to about 35 centimeters in maximum height. Like many species in its family, it is a facultative root parasite on other plants, attaching to their roots via haustoria to tap nutrients. Its green or purplish leaves are up to 5 centimeters long and are divided into a few narrow, pointed lobes.
The inflorescence is a spike of flowers. Each flower has a very thin, narrow upper lip which is purple in color, and a wide lower lip which is divided into three pouches. The color of the pouches depends on subspecies: the common ssp. eriantha has white and bright yellow pouches, and the less common coastal subsp. rosea has white pouches tinged with pink.


Triphysaria pusilla is a species of flowering plant in the family Orobanchaceae known by the common name dwarf owl's-clover.
The plant is native to the west coast of North America from British Columbia to central California from the California Coast Ranges across to the Sierra Nevada. It grows in moist open habitat such as spring-fed grasslands.


Triphysaria pusilla is an annual herb producing a hairy brownish or purple-colored, multi-branched stem up to about 20 centimeters in maximum height. Like many species in its family, it is a facultative hemiparasite on other plants, attaching to their roots via haustoria to tap nutrients and water.
Its leaves are greenish, red or purple because of the anthocyanin pigments that the plants produce. They are up to 3 centimeters long and divided into a few narrow, pointed lobes.
The inflorescence is a spike of minute, tubular flowers. Each flower has a beak-like yellow or purple upper lip and a wider lower lip which is divided into three tiny yellow or purple pouches. To increase the chances of cross pollination, at any point of time during the flowering season, only three flowers will have matured on each individual plant. Two of these flowers mature their anthers first while the remaining flower matures its stigma.


It is hypothesized that ants are the preferred pollinator of this species.


Tripleurospermum inodorum, common names scentless false mayweed, scentless mayweed, scentless chamomile, wild chamomile, mayweed, false chamomile, and Baldr's brow, is the type species of Tripleurospermum. This plant is native to Eurasia and North Africa, and introduced to North America, where it is commonly found in fields, fallow land and gardens.
Historically included the genus Matricaria, Tripleurospermum inodorum has been the subject of some controversy, with many revisions in recent years. The Flora Europaea uses Matricaria perforata for this species. Synonyms/other scientific names include Tripleurospermum perforatum (Mérat) Lainz, Tripleurospermum maritimum subsp. inodorum.


Height: 20–80 cm (8–32 in.). Usually 1-stemmed. Stem erect–ascending, branching, glabrous, green.
Flower: Single flower-like, usually 3–5 cm (1.2–2 in.) capitula, surrounded by involucral bracts. Capitula's ray-florets white, tongue-like, tip shallowly 3-toothed; disc florets yellow, tubular, small. Stamens 5. Pistil of 2 fused carpels. Involucral bracts different lengths, 1–1.5 mm (0.04–0.06 in.) broad, light brown–white margins. Disc stacked, full. Capitula 1–20 borne in a corymbose cluster.
Cotyledons：oribicular to oblong， very small，3 to 5 mm long, Stalkless
Leaves and stems: Alternate, short-stalked–stalkless. Blade 2–3 times pinnately lobed (–with leaflets), glabrous, lobes (or leaflets) long, thread-like narrow, sharp-pointed. Leaves are ¾ to 3 inches long, feathery with a few to numerous thread-like branching lobes. Stems are single, erect, branched in the upper plant, weakly ridged or lined, hairless though sparsely hairy when young.
Fruit: Flattish, ridged achene, with 2 round–angular oil spots, tip sometimes with small, membranous ring.
Habitat: Fields, fallow land, lawns, wasteland, roadsides, yards, gardens.
Flowering time: June–October.
Life cycle: annual, short-lived perennial
Pollen is collected by solitary bees.
Ecological definition: Weed. Tripleurospermum inodorum has been classified as a noxious weed (class C) in the state of Washington and is considered invasive in other states (it is resistant to some herbicides); it is a weed of cereals in western Canada. W. L. Applequist (2002) has shown that the name Matricaria inodora is not a superfluous new name for M. chamomilla as earlier stated by S. Rauschert (1974). Therefore, the appropriate name under Tripleuro-spermum is T. inodorum. She also considered its type to belong in T. maritimum and formally recognized it there as subsp. inodorum, on the basis of hybridization with other T. maritimum subspecies (A. Vaarama 1953); on the same basis, however, Hämet-Ahti maintained the species distinction between T. inodorum and T. maritimum, while making T. phaeocephalum a subspecies of the latter.  According to Canadian regulations, it is classified as Secondary Noxious, Class 3 and Noxious, Class 5 in the Canadian Weed Seeds Order, 2016 under the Seeds Act.


In Sweden and Norway, it is called Baldr's brow, but in Iceland, it is the close relative Sea Mayweed (Matricaria maritima) that carries this name. In Gylfaginning, Snorri Sturluson explains that the name Balder's brow comes from the plants' whiteness:
Annarr sonr Óðins er Baldr, ok er frá honum gott at segja. Hann er beztr, ok hann lofa allir. Hann er svá fagr álitum ok bjartr, svá at lýsir af honum, ok eitt gras er svá hvítt, at jafnat er til Baldrs brár. Þat er allra grasa hvítast, ok þar eftir máttu marka fegurð hans bæði á hár ok á líki. Hann er vitrastr ásanna ok fegrst talaðr ok líknsamastr, en sú náttúra fylgir honum, at engi má haldast dómr hans. Hann býr þar, sem heitir Breiðablik. Þat er á himni. Í þeim stað má ekki vera óhreint[.]
The second son of Odin is Baldr, and good things are to be said of him. He is best, and all praise him; he is so fair of feature, and so bright, that light shines from him. A certain herb is so white that it is likened to Baldr's brow; of all grasses it is whitest, and by it thou mayest judge his fairness, both in hair and in body. He is the wisest of the Æsir, and the fairest-spoken and most gracious; and that quality attends him, that none may gainsay his judgments. He dwells in the place called Breidablik, which is in heaven; in that place may nothing unclean be[.]


Tripolium pannonicum, called sea aster or seashore aster and often known by the synonyms Aster tripolium or Aster pannonicus, is a flowering plant, native to Eurasia and northern Africa, that is confined in its distribution to salt marshes, estuaries and occasionally to inland salt works.
It is a perennial growing up to 50 cm tall with fleshy lanceolate leaves and purple ray florets flowering from July to September. The plants tend to be short-lived and populations need significant new recruitment each year from new seedlings.
There are rayed as well as rayless varieties and only the former have long blue or white florets. The rayless form is yellow. The plant flowers well into autumn and hence provides a valuable source of nectar for late-flying butterflies such as painted lady and red admiral.
Young leaves of this plant are edible and are collected for consumption on the floodplains of the Dutch province of Zeeland. The leaves are typically sauteed in butter and consumed as a vegetable.


Tripsacum dactyloides, commonly called eastern gamagrass, or Fakahatchee grass, is a warm-season, sod-forming bunch grass. It is widespread in the Western Hemisphere, native from the eastern United States to northern South America. Its natural habitat is in sunny moist areas, such as along watercourses and in wet prairies. In some areas, it has adapted well to disturbed conditions.
Eastern gamagrass is a widely cultivated for its use as forage.


Usually gamagrass grows to a height of 2–3 feet (0.61–0.91 m), but it can be as high as 8–10 ft (2.4–3.0 m). Tripsacum dactyloides is one of the species in the family Poaceae, tribe Andropogoneae, and subtribe Tripsacinae. As the plant is a distant relative of corn, it shares common subtribes with the Zea mays corn species.
Roots: Eastern gamagrass has several short, fibrous, thick rhizomes. Eastern gamagrass can survive droughts and floods for a long time because of its rigid and thick rhizomatous roots which firmly holding the plant upright. The deep and hollow roots of the plant branch out from lower nodes.
Leaves: Since the grass has short internodes, all the leaves grow out from the plant's base. Each clump's diameter can increase up to 4 ft (1.2 m).
The stems and leaves have a purplish color and are glabrous. The glabrous leaf-blade is around 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) long, 9–35 millimetres (0.35–1.38 in) wide and has hairs at the base. The distinct midrib leaves of gamagrass can grow up to a height of 12–24 inches (300–610 mm) and a width of 0.375–0.75 in (9.5–19.1 mm).
Flowers: The flowers of eastern gamagrass, which blooms from late March to early October, consist of spikes made up of female and male spikelets. Tripsacum dactyloides has separate female and male flowers on the same individual making it a monoecious plant. The inflorescence of the terminal axillary bud is 10–30 centimetres (3.9–11.8 in) long. The type of inflorescence is usually a single raceme or a panicle with a combination of two to three unisexual single racemes.
Fruits: The seed-producing season of the grass is from June to September. The seeds mature disproportionally and production is commonly slow. The joints of the seedhead break into two as the fruit matures and each seed-bearing part contains one seed. The size of the seedhead can range from 6 to 10 inches. Usually spikelets of grass assist reproduction by holding the grain and fruit. When the mature female spikelets are destroyed they separate like pop-beads.


Tripsacum dactyloides is widely spread throughout the United States, from Connecticut to Nebraska and south to Florida and Texas. It is also found  as far south as South America, in Paraguay and Brazil. The plant has been cultivated outside of its native range in the southwestern United States and elsewhere.


The best growing conditions for eastern gamagrass are provided by wet land, such as floodplains along riverbanks. Moreover, moist, nonalkaline lowland areas will maintain the growth of gamagrass because the land can endure a longer time under flood conditions. The soil that is most suitable for eastern gamagrass is moist, little drained fertile soil that has an annual precipitation of 900–1,500 mm (35–59 in) and a pH of 5.5 to 7.5.
Tripsacum dactyloides can tolerate a maximum of three weeks of flooding without dying. The deep roots, which extend to around 4.5 m (15 ft) underground, are the key structure that allows gamagrass to tolerate drought.


Eastern gamagrass was widely considered a high class feedcrop among the early settlers of the United States. However, it started to disappear because of grain crops and cattle grazing. Around the late 1980s and early 1990s, people started to pay attention again to eastern gamagrass as a good productive forage in summer, since it is productive, palatable and easily digestible by almost all cattle. For these reasons, gamagrass is ideally suitable for feed crops, including hay and pasture forage for which rotation of grazing seasons is controlled. It is used as forage because the growing season of the grass is earlier compared to other warm-season grasses and later compared to cool-season grass and legumes. Eastern gamagrass requires a moderate amount of carbohydrates stored in the leaf bases for regrowth. If the plant is grazed before carbohydrate accumulates in the leaf bases the plant will die from overgrazing.
Gamagrass is also suitable as a wildlife habitat. Hollow space in the middle of dispersed bundles and the tented canopy created by the leaves growing from the rhizomes and dropping into the middle make the plant an attractive location for wildlife. For example, the empty space in the middle of bundles is large enough for wild animals like quails and prairie chickens to build nests. Moreover, the grass provides good cover during the winter for grassland sparrows.
Gamagrass grows from mid-April to mid-September. This is a little earlier in the year compared to other native warm-season grasses like big bluestem, (Andropogon gerardi) and switch grass, (Panicum virgatum). The high relative yield of gamagrass in summer is the major reason why this grass is a good feedcrop when cool-season grasses ("tall fescue") are undeveloped.


Triteleia grandiflora is a species of flowering plant known by the common names largeflower triteleia, largeflower tripletlily, and wild hyacinth. It is native to western North America from British Columbia to extreme northern California, eastward into Idaho, Montana and northern Utah, with disjunct populations occurring in Wyoming and Colorado. Its habitat includes grassland, sagebrush, woodlands, and forests. It is a perennial herb growing from a corm. It produces two or three basal leaves up to 70 centimetres (28 in) long by 1 cm wide. The inflorescence arises on a smooth, erect stem up to 75 cm (30 in) tall and bears an umbel-like cluster of many flowers. Each flower is a funnel-shaped bloom borne on a pedicel up to 4 or 5 cm long. The flower may be up to 3.5 cm long including the tubular throat and six tepals each just over 1 cm long. The inner set of three tepals are somewhat ruffled and broader than the outer tepals. The flower corolla may be deep blue to almost white with a darker blue mid-vein. There are six stamens with purple or yellow anthers.
The corm provides food for various wild rodents and livestock, and Native Americans and settlers found them edible as well.


Triteleia hyacinthina is a species of flowering plant  known by the common names white brodiaea, white tripletlily, hyacinth brodiaea, and fool's onion. It is native to western North America from British Columbia to Idaho to central California. Its habitat includes grassland and vernally moist areas such as meadows and vernal pools. It is a perennial herb growing from a corm. It produces two or three basal leaves up to 40 centimeters (16 in) long by 2 centimeters (0.79 in) wide. The inflorescence arises on an erect stem up to 60 centimeters (24 in) tall and bears an umbel-like cluster of many flowers. Each flower is a funnel-shaped bloom borne on a pedicel up to 5 centimeters (2.0 in) long. The flower is white, often tinged purple along the tubular throat, with six green-veined tepals. There are six stamens with white, yellow, or occasionally blue anthers.
The bulb is edible but does not smell like an onion.


Trithemis arteriosa, the red-veined dropwing, is a species of dragonfly in the family Libellulidae.


Trithemis arteriosa is widespread and common in most of its range which includes most of Africa and extends to western Asia and southern Europe. In Africa, it is found in Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canary Islands, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mayotte, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. In western Asia and southern Europe, it is found in Crete, Cyprus, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestinian Territory, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.


This dragonfly is found in and near a wide variety of slow-flowing and still-water habitats. These include streams, rivers, intermittent rivers, freshwater lakes, intermittent freshwater lakes, freshwater marshes, intermittent freshwater marshes, irrigation canals and ditches.


The face of the mature male is deep red, the vertex and top of the frons having a purple sheen. The eyes are deep red and the labium deep yellow with a dark brown stripe in the centre. The synthorax is red with black stripes; mature males often have a purple bloom on the upper thorax. The wings have bright red veins and orange makings at their bases. The pterostigmas are 2.3-2.4 mm long and dark brown. The slender abdomen is bright red; S6-S8 have black wedges on each side; S9 and S10 are black. Females have similar markings, but the abdomen and face are yellow to yellowish brown. The sides of the synthorax are pale yellow-brown, as are the lower sides of S1-S3.


Trithemis aurora, the crimson marsh glider, is a species of dragonfly in the family Libellulidae. It is a common and widely distributed species found throughout the year across the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.


The male of the species is distinctly different from the female. The male has a reddish-brown face, with eyes that are crimson above and brown on the sides. The thorax is red with a fine, purple pruinescence. The abdomen, the base of which is swollen, is crimson with a violet tinge. The wings are transparent with crimson venation and the base has a broad amber patch. The wing spots are a dark reddish-brown and the legs are black.
The female has an olivaceous or bright reddish-brown face with eyes that are purplish-brown above and grey below. The thorax is olivaceous with brown median and black lateral stripes. The abdomen is reddish-brown with median and lateral black markings. The black markings are confluent at the end of each segment and enclose a reddish-brown spot. The wings are transparent with brown tips. The venation is bright yellow to brown and basal amber markings are pale. The wing spots are a dark brown and the lags are dark grey with narrow yellow stripes.


It is commonly found in weedy tanks and ponds, marshes, channels, and slow flowing streams and rivers in the lowlands and mid-hills. It breeds in streams, rivers, canals, ponds and tanks.


The black stream glider (Trithemis festiva), also known as the indigo dropwing is a species of dragonfly in the family Libellulidae. It is a very widespread species, occurring from Greece, Cyprus and Turkey, throughout Asia to New Guinea.


Black stream glider is a medium-sized dragonfly with purple color on its body structure.
In the male, the frontal area appears darker purplish grey. The eyes are dark brown above, with a purple colored tinge, which is bluish grey, lateral and beneath. The thorax is black, covered with purple pruinescence, which helps it appear deep blue. The legs are black and wings are transparent with a dark opaque brown mark at the base of hind wing, with a black spot on tip of the wing. The abdomen is covered with fine blue pruinescence.
The female looks brown in the front and extends above. The eyes are dark brown above and appear more grey-ish below. Thorax is greenish-yellow to olivaceous, with the presence of a medial dark brown lateral stripe. In addition, a Y-shaped inverted stripes can be observed on the sides. Legs are black with anterior femora being yellow on the inner side. Wings are transparent with dark reddish-brown tip with a black spot, similar to the male. The abdomen appears bright yellow with medial, lateral and ventral stripes, colored black, however, the medial and lateral black stripes form a confluence at abdominal segments to enclose a wedge-shaped yellow spot.


This dragonfly is commonly seen and has been mostly observed near slow flowing streams and canals, accompanying dense forest ranges. It usually perches on boulders adjacent to streams, rivers and canals. They have also been witnessed perched on tip of aquatic plants, dried plants and similar plants that grow near banks of a sluggish steam or river.


The long-legged marsh glider or dancing dropwing (Trithemis pallidinervis) is a species of dragonfly found in Asia.


The long-legged marsh glider is a medium-sized yellowish brown dragonfly with long legs. In males, the face is yellow or pale brown in front and iridescent purple above. The eyes are colored reddish brown above, brown on sides and bluish grey below. The thorax is olivaceous brown above with a dark brown triangle. On the sides, it is bright yellowish brown with three black stripes on each side. The legs are black, long, and spidery. The basal half of the femora of the first pair of legs are bright yellow. The wings are transparent with reddish venation. The forewings have amber basal markings. The wings have a golden sheen when viewed from certain angle. Wing spot is black with creamy white ends. The abdomen looks bright yellow in color with black median and lateral stripes. These stripes are confluent at the end of each abdominal segment to enclose a wedge shaped yellow spot. The male varies in colour from yellow (below) to chocolate brown when matured.
The females are similar to males but with a broad abdomen. The only way to distinguish the male from the female is the projection on segment two (secondary genital) and purple frons on the face.


Common wheat (Triticum aestivum), also known as bread wheat, is a cultivated wheat species. About 95% of wheat produced worldwide is common wheat; it is the most widely grown of all crops and the cereal with the highest monetary yield.


Numerous forms of wheat have evolved under human selection. This diversity has led to confusion in the naming of wheats, with names based on both genetic and morphological characteristics. For more information, see the taxonomy of wheat.


Bread wheat is an allohexaploid (an allopolyploid with six sets of chromosomes: two sets from each of three different species). Of the six sets of chromosomes, two come from Triticum urartu (einkorn wheat) and two from a species related to Aegilops speltoides. This spontaneous hybridisation created the tetraploid species Triticum turgidum (an ancestor of wild emmer wheat and durum wheat) 580,000–820,000 years ago. The last two sets of chromosomes came from wild goat-grass, Aegilops tauschii, 230,000–430,000 years ago. Recent research suggest that T. macha originated from a hybrid cross between T. aestivum and wild emmer wheat.
Free-threshing wheat is closely related to spelt. As with spelt, genes contributed from Aegilops tauschii give bread wheat greater cold hardiness than most wheats, and it is cultivated throughout the world's temperate regions.


Common wheat was first domesticated in Western Asia during the early Holocene, and spread from there to North Africa, Europe and East Asia in the prehistoric period. Naked wheats (including Triticum aestivum/durum/turgidum) were found in Roman burial sites ranging from 100BCE to 300CE .
Wheat first reached North America with Spanish missions in the 16th century, but North America's role as a major exporter of grain dates from the colonization of the prairies in the 1870s. As grain exports from Russia ceased in the First World War, grain production in Kansas doubled.
Worldwide, bread wheat has proved well adapted to modern industrial baking, and has displaced many of the other wheat, barley, and rye species that were once commonly used for bread making, particularly in Europe.


Compact wheats (e.g., club wheat Triticum compactum, but in India T. sphaerococcum) are closely related to common wheat, but have a much more compact ear. Their shorter rachis segments lead to spikelets packed closer together. Compact wheats are often regarded as subspecies rather than species in their own right (thus T. aestivum subsp. compactum).


Trixis californica , the American threefold or American trixis, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is native to the southwestern United States in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, and in Mexico in the states of Baja California, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Nuevo León, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tamaulipas, and Zacatecas.
Trixis californica is one of 22 species in Trixis, a genus that occurs in North America, Central America, the West Indies, northern Argentina, Uruguay, and southern Brazil.


Trixis californica is a sprawling shrub or subshrub with flower heads with about 15 bright yellow flowers each. The inflorescence is terminal, usually a panicle or corymb, but sometimes the heads are borne singly at the tips of branches. Leaves are lance-shaped (lanceolate), dark green, 2–11 cm long, and 0.5–3 cm wide. This species occurs from sea level to 5000 feet in elevation. Its habitat types include rocky hillsides, thorn scrub, and desert washes and brush. In the western Sonoran Desert it is exclusive to washes and only grows amongst other plants. In the Colorado Desert it grows in creosote scrub. It grows in scrub in the Yuma Desert, east of the Colorado River. Though it usually flowers between February and October, it may bloom nearly year-round depending on winter weather conditions.


The leaves of this species were smoked for pleasure by the Seri of Mexico.  Other uses include administration as an aid to childbirth.


The house wren (Troglodytes aedon) is a very small songbird of the wren family, Troglodytidae. It occurs from Canada to southernmost South America, and is thus the most widely distributed native bird in the Americas. It occurs in most suburban areas in its range and it is the single most common wren. Its taxonomy is highly complex and some subspecies groups are often considered separate species. The name troglodytes means "hole dweller", and is a reference to bird's tendency to disappear into crevices when hunting insects or to seek shelter.


The house wren was formally described in 1809 by the French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot under the current binomial name Troglodytes aedon. The specific epithet is from the Ancient Greek aēdōn meaning "nightingale". The type locality was designated as New York City by Harry Oberholser in 1934.
There are 32 recognised subspecies. These are sometimes divided into three distinct groups and one or several distinct island-endemic subspecies. Some or all of these are sometimes considered as distinct species.
Northern house wren, Troglodytes (aedon) aedon group – Canada to southern United States
Southern house wren, Troglodytes (aedon) musculus group – southern Mexico, Central and South America
Brown-throated wren, Troglodytes (aedon) brunneicollis group – southern United States and central ranges of Mexico
Cozumel wren, Troglodytes (aedon) beani – Cozumel Island off the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico
It has also been suggested that the taxa from the Lesser Antilles represent one or more separate species, but there is less agreement as to their subdivision, because as far as they have been studied to date, there is little clear biogeographical structure among these populations.
Three additional taxa from more oceanic islands have traditionally been included in the house wren, but are now considered as separate species:
Cobb's wren, Troglodytes cobbi – Falkland Islands (South Atlantic)
Socorro wren, Troglodytes sissonii – Socorro, Revillagigedo Islands
Clarión wren, Troglodytes tanneri – Clarion, Revillagigedo Islands (East Pacific)


Adults are 11 to 13 cm (4.3 to 5.1 in) long, with a 15 cm (5.9 in) wingspan and weigh about 10 to 12 g (0.35 to 0.42 oz). Among standard measurements, the wing chord is 4.7 to 5.3 cm (1.9 to 2.1 in), the tail is 3.9 to 4.4 cm (1.5 to 1.7 in), the culmen is 1.1 to 1.3 cm (0.43 to 0.51 in) and the tarsus is 1.6 to 1.8 cm (0.63 to 0.71 in). The subspecies vary greatly, with upperparts ranging from dull greyish-brown to rich rufescent-brown, and the underparts ranging from brown, over buff and pale grey, to pure white. All subspecies have blackish barring to the wings and tail, and some also to the flanks. All subspecies show a faint eye-ring and eyebrow and have a long, thin bill with a blackish upper mandible, and a black-tipped yellowish or pale grey lower mandible. The legs are pinkish or grey. The short tail is typically held cocked.
This bird's rich bubbly song is commonly heard during the nesting season but rarely afterwards. There is marked geographical variation in the song, though somewhat more gradual than in the bird's outward appearance that can strikingly differ, e.g., on neighboring islands in the Caribbean. Birds from far north and south of the species' range nonetheless have songs that differ markedly.


In North America, the house wren is thought to achieve the highest density in floodplain forests in the western great plains where it uses woodpecker holes as nesting sites. In South and Central America it can be found in virtually any habitat and is, as indicated by its common name, often associated with humans. North American birds migrate to the southern United States and Mexico for winter. Most return to the breeding grounds in late April to May, and leave for winter quarters again around September to early October. These birds forage actively in vegetation. They mainly eat insects such as butterfly larvae, beetles and bugs, also spiders and snails. Southern house wrens rarely attend mixed-species feeding flocks.


The nesting habits do not seem to differ significantly between the northern and southern house wrens. They usually construct a large cup nest in various sorts of cavities, taking about a week to build. The nest is made from small dry sticks and is usually lined with a variety of different materials. These include: feather, hair, wool, spider cocoons, strips of bark, rootlets, moss, and trash. The male wren finds dry sticks, which he adds to the nest. Once he is done, the female inspects the nest; but if she does not approve of the construction, she will throw any unwanted sticks to the ground. After this process, the female lines the nest. Nest cavities are usually a few meters above ground at most, but occasionally on cliffs as high up as 15 m (49 ft) and more at least in southern populations; they may be natural or man-made, often using bird houses.
House wrens are feisty and pugnacious animals considering their tiny size. They are known to occasionally destroy the eggs of other birds nesting in their territory by puncturing the eggshell. Females that sang more songs to conspecifics that were simulated by playback lost fewer eggs to ovicide by other wrens. Female bird song in this species is, therefore, thought to have a function in competition and is not only displayed by males. They are also known to fill up other birds' nests within its territory with sticks to make them unusable.
Depending on the exact population, the house wrens' clutch is usually between two and eight red-blotched cream-white eggs, weighing about 1.4 g (0.05 oz) each and measuring c.17 and 13.4 mm (0.67 and 0.53 in) at the widest points. Only the female incubates these, for around 12–19 days, and she will every now and then leave the nest for various reasons. While she is on the nest, the male provisions her with food. The young, which like all passerines hatch almost naked and helpless, take another 15–19 days or so to fledge. They are being fed by both parents, and need plenty of food given their tiny size (see also Bergmann's Rule). As the young near fledging, the parents spend much of their time procuring food for them. Brood loss due to predation was found to be light in the Southern Andean Yungas, with predation of nestling young being almost insignificant. Known predators of house wrens at the nest include cats, rats, opossums, woodpeckers, foxes, raccoons, squirrels, snakes and owls. Adults away from the nests can usually avoid these predators although both small hawks and owls occasionally take free-flying adult wrens.
Migrant populations are nesting within 6 weeks of returning from winter quarters, leaving theoretically time for a second brood. In the subtropical montane forest of northwestern Argentina and similar habitat, the southern house wren breeds in the rainy summer months from late October to late December.
In Washington, D.C. area, house wren parents made significantly more feeding trips per hour in suburban backyards compared to rural backyards. Yet rural nestlings grew at a faster rate than their suburban counterparts. In addition, suburban parents spent less time brooding (sitting on the nest) compared to rural parents. Such results suggest that suburban backyard habitats offer house wrens food for nestlings that is inferior in either quality or quantity to what rural habitats offer. Food items may, for example, be smaller in suburban habitats, and force adults to make more trips to the box.
In South Temperate Argentina, southern house wrens dispersed more frequently between-seasons than within a season, with females dispersing more often than males.  Widowed and single males dispersed more frequently than paired males, whilst within-season divorce increased the breeding success of females but not males.


The house wren may have been displaced somewhat in some northern parts of its range by the introduction of the house sparrow, but is still common and widespread throughout most of the Americas. It is not considered threatened by the IUCN, though this would certainly not hold true for several of the island population if they turn out to be true species.
Some taxa, especially from the Lesser Antilles, are rare and highly endangered or possibly already extinct. Several factors seem to have contributed to a varying degree to the decline of these birds, namely habitat destruction, predation by introduced mongooses, and hurricanes:
Martinique house wren, Troglodytes aedon martinicensis) – Martinique, apparently extinct (c.1890)
Guadeloupe house wren, Troglodytes aedon guadeloupensis – Guadeloupe, possibly extinct (late 20th century?)
Saint Lucia house wren, Troglodytes aedon mesoleucus – Saint Lucia, believed extinct by the 1970s, subsequently rediscovered but still precariously rare
The Saint Vincent house wren (Troglodytes aedon musicus) of Saint Vincent was close to extinction in the mid-late 20th century; it has since recovered and today is not uncommon.
As remarked above, these are variously placed in T. musculus if that is considered distinct, or as one or several distinct species.


John James Audubon illustrates the house wren in Birds of America (published, London 1827–38) as Plate 83. The image was engraved and colored by the Robert Havell, London workshops. The limited 1985 edition by Audubon is available for purchase at the New York History Society.
Troglodytes Aedon was one of the two pets of King Friday the XIII in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Trog, as the King called him, was a wooden wren on a stick, and Trog had his own song. King Friday's other pet was a mockingbird (a wooden mockingbird on a stick) named Mimus Polyglottos (see Neighborhood of Make-Believe).
Brazilian footballer Garrincha earned his nickname from one of the names the house wren has in Rio de Janeiro.


The Pacific wren (Troglodytes pacificus) is a very small North American bird and a member of the mainly New World wren family Troglodytidae. It was once lumped with Troglodytes hiemalis of eastern North America and Troglodytes troglodytes of Eurasia as the winter wren.
It breeds along the Pacific coast from Alaska to California and inland as far as Wyoming and the Black Hills of South Dakota. It migrates through and winters across the western half of the United States and Canada.
The scientific name is taken from the Greek word "troglodytes" (from "trogle" a hole, and "dyein" to creep), meaning "cave-dweller", and refers to its habit of disappearing into cavities or crevices whilst hunting arthropods or to roost.


By studying the songs and genetics of individuals in an overlap zone between Troglodytes hiemalis and Troglodytes pacificus, Toews and Irwin (2008) found strong evidence of reproductive isolation between the two. It was suggested that the pacificus subspecies be promoted to the species level designation of Troglodytes pacificus with the common name of ‘Pacific wren’. By applying a molecular clock to the amount of mitochondrial DNA sequence divergence between the two, it was estimated that Troglodytes pacificus and Troglodytes troglodytes last shared a common ancestor approximately 4.3 million years ago, long before the glacial cycles of the Pleistocene, thought to have promoted speciation in many avian systems inhabiting the boreal forest of North America.


The Pacific wren nests mostly in coniferous forests, especially those of spruce and fir, where it is often identified by its long and exuberant song.  Although it is an insectivore, it can remain in moderately cold and even snowy climates by foraging for insects on substrates such as bark and fallen logs.
Its movements as it creeps or climbs are incessant rather than rapid; its short flights swift and direct but not sustained, its tiny round wings whirring as it flies from bush to bush.
At night, usually in winter, it often roosts, true to its scientific name, in dark retreats, snug holes and even old nests. In hard weather it may do so in parties, either consisting of the family or of many individuals gathered together for warmth.
For the most part insects and spiders are its food, but in winter large pupae are taken and some seeds.


The Eurasian wren (Troglodytes troglodytes) or northern wren is a very small insectivorous bird, and the only member of the wren family Troglodytidae found in Eurasia and Africa (Maghreb). In Anglophone Europe, it is commonly known simply as the wren. It has a very short tail which is often held erect, a short neck and a relative long thin bill. It is russet brown above, paler buff-brown below and has a cream buff supercilium. The sexes are alike.
The species was once lumped with Troglodytes hiemalis of eastern North America and Troglodytes pacificus of western North America as the winter wren. The Eurasian wren occurs in Europe and across the Palearctic – including a belt of Asia from northern Iran and Afghanistan across to Japan. It is migratory in only the northern parts of its range. It is also highly polygynous, an unusual mating system for passerines.
The scientific name is taken from the Greek word "troglodytes" (from τρώγλη troglē "hole", and δῠ́ειν dyein, "creep"), meaning "hole-dweller", and refers to its habit of disappearing into cavities or crevices whilst hunting arthropods or to roost. The taxonomy of the genus Troglodytes is currently unresolved, as recent molecular studies have suggested that  Cistothorus spp. and Thryorchilus spp. are within the clade currently defined by Troglodytes.


The Eurasian wren was described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Motacilla troglodytes. The specific epithet is from the Ancient Greek trōglodutēs meaning "cave-dweller". In 1555 the German naturalist Conrad Gessner had used the Latin name Passer troglodyte for the Eurasian wren in his Historiae animalium. The species is now placed in the genus Troglodytes that was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1809.
The Eurasian wren was formerly considered conspecific with two North American species: the winter wren (Troglodytes hiemalis) and the Pacific wren (Troglodytes pacificus). Some ornithologists place the Eurasian wren, the winter wren and the Pacific wren in a separate genus Nannus that was introduced by the Swedish naturalist Gustaf Johan Billberg in 1828 with the Eurasian wren as the type species.
It was estimated that Troglodytes pacificus and Troglodytes troglodytes last shared a common ancestor approximately 4.3 million years ago, long before the glacial cycles of the Pleistocene, thought to have promoted speciation in many avian lineages inhabiting the boreal forest of North America.
There are 28 recognised subspecies of this taxonomically complex bird. The disputed subspecies T. t. orii, the Daito wren, became extinct around 1940 – if it was indeed a valid taxon and not merely based on an anomaly. Thus in Scotland, in addition to the typical bird T. t. indigenus, there are three distinct insular subspecies: one, T. t. hirtensis, is confined to the island of St Kilda; another, T. t. zetlandicus, to the Shetland Islands; and the third, T. t. fridariensis, to Fair Isle. The St Kilda wren is greyer above, whiter beneath, with more abundant bars on the back; the Shetland wren and Fair Isle wren are darker.


The Eurasian wren is a plump, sturdy bird with rounded wings and a short tail, which is usually held cocked up. The adult bird is 9 to 10 cm (3.5 to 3.9 in) in length and has a wingspan of 13–17 cm (5.1–6.7 in). It weighs around 10 g (0.35 oz). It is rufous brown above, greyer beneath, and indistinctly barred with darker brown and grey, even on the wings and tail. The bill is dark brown and the legs are pale brown, the feet having strong claws and a large hind toe. Young birds are less distinctly barred and have mottled underparts. The plumage is subject to considerable variation, and where populations have been isolated, the variation has become fixed in one minor form or another.


The Eurasian wren is a Palearctic species. The nominate race breeds in Europe as far north as 67°N in Norway and 64°N in Sweden, Finland and Russia. The bird's southern limit is northern Spain, southern France, Italy, Sicily and southern Russia. It also breeds in Western Asia as far east as Syria. It is replaced by other races in Iceland, the Faroe Islands, the Shetlands, the Hebrides, and St Kilda, and further south in northwestern Africa, Spain and Portugal, the Balearic Islands, Corsica, Sardinia, Crete and Cyprus. Other races also occur in southern Russia and Japan.
It occupies a great variety of habitats, typically any kind of cultivated or uncultivated area with bushes and low ground cover; gardens, hedgerows, thickets, plantations, woodland and reed beds. It inhabits more open locations with clumps of brambles or gorse, rough pasture, moorland, boulder-strewn slopes, rocky coasts and sea cliffs.


The gartered trogon (Trogon caligatus), also known as the northern violaceous trogon, is a near passerine bird in the family Trogonidae, the quetzals and trogons. It is found in Mexico, all of Central America, and Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.


Until the early 2000s, what are now the gartered trogon and the Amazonian trogon (T. ramonianus) were considered subspecies of the violaceous trogon (T. violaceous). The International Ornithological Committee (IOC), the Clements taxonomy, and the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society (AOS-SACC) have implemented the split making them separate species and renaming T. violaceous the Guianan trogon. However, BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW) retains them as subspecies. The classification schemes that treat the gartered trogon as a species assign three subspecies, the nominate T. c. caligatus, T. c. sallaei, and T. c. concinnus.


Most trogons have distinctive male and female plumages, with soft, often colorful, feathers. The gartered trogon is 23 to 25 cm (9.1 to 9.8 in) long and weighs 38 to 57 g (1.3 to 2.0 oz). The nominate male's head, neck, and upper breast are a violet-blue. The face and throat are black with a pale yellow ring around the eye. A narrow white band separates the upper breast from the bright yellow lower breast and belly. The upperparts are metallic green. The tail's upperside is violet-blue with black feather tips; the underside has fine black and white bars and broad white feather tips. The wings are mostly black with some whitish inclusions. The female's head and face, upper breast, and upperparts are gray; the eyering is not complete, the belly is a duller yellow than the male's, and the underside of the tail has a different pattern of black and white.
T. c. sallaei has a blackish head and upper breast and a blue nape and lower breast. Its upperparts are a yellower green than the nominate's and the upper side of the tail is green. T. c. concinnus is similar to sallaei but its upperparts and tail are bluer.


T. c. sallaei is the northernmost subspecies of gartered trogon. It is found on the Caribbean slope of central Mexico and from the Caribbean and Pacific slopes of southern Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, and El Salvador into northern Honduras and possibly into Nicaragua. T. c. concinnus is found from Costa Rica through most of Panama into western Colombia, and separately from western Ecuador into northwestern Peru. The nominate T. c. caligatus is found from the Caribbean slope of Panama's Darién Province through northern Colombia into western Venezuela. It is a year round resident in Mexico but its movements elsewhere, if any, are unknown.
The gartered trogon is generally a bird of semi-open landscapes such as forest edges, clearings, gallery forest, secondary forest, and shaded coffee and cacao plantations. In Mexico it is also found in denser evergreen forest and rainforest. In elevation it ranges as high as 1,400 m (4,600 ft) in Central America but is generally more common in lowlands.


The gartered trogon usually feeds by hovering to pick fruit and invertebrates from vegetation. It diet includes a larger amount of fruit than most other trogons but also many types of insects and other invertebrates. It sometimes joins mixed-species foraging flocks.


The gartered trogon's breeding season spans from March to June in Mexico, May to July in El Salvador, and February to June in Costa Rica. It nests in an wasp, ant, or termite arboreal nest or a hole in a rotten tree, with a typical clutch of two or three eggs.


The gartered trogon's song is "a long series of rapid hollow downslurred notes, kyu-kyu-kyu-kyu-kyu-kyu". It also makes a "rolling chattering" call.


The IUCN has not assessed the gartered trogon separately from violaceous trogon sensu lato. It is fairly common to common in most of its range though very rare in Venezuela.


The collared trogon (Trogon collaris) is a near passerine bird in family Trogonidae, the quetzals and trogons. It is found in Mexico, throughout Central America, and in northern South America.


The International Ornithological Committee (IOC) and the Clements taxonomy recognize these 10 subspecies of collared trogon. They treated T. c. aurantiiventris ("orange-bellied trogon") as a separate species until the late 2010s.
T. c. puella Gould (1846)
T. c. underwoodi Bangs (1908)
T. c. aurantiiventris Gould (1846)
T. c. extimus Griscom (1929)
T. c. heothinus Wetmore (1967)
T. c. virginalis Cabanis & Heine (1863)
T. c. subtropicalis Zimmer (1948)
T. c. exoptatus Cabanis & Heine (1863)
T. c. collaris Vieillot (1817)
T. c. castaneus Spix (1824)
BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW) recognizes eight subspecies, excluding T. c. aurantiiventris and T. c. underwoodi.


Trogons have distinctive male and female plumages, with soft, often colorful, feathers. The collared trogon is about 25 to 29 cm (9.8 to 11.4 in) long and weigh abouts 41 to 64 g (1.4 to 2.3 oz). Both sexes have a black face and throat. The male's crown, nape, back, and rump are bright metallic green. The folded wing shows black and white vermiculation. The breast is also metallic green with a white band separating it from the bright red belly and vent. The upperside of the tail is green with a black tip and the underside is barred black and white. The female is olive brown where the male is green, the closed wing is brown with black vermiculation, and the belly is a duller red than the male's. The underside of the tail is gray with a few black bars and white tips.
The male collared trogon is the national bird for Kenya because the colors are in the National flag.


The 10 subspecies of collared trogon are found thus:
T. c. puella, central Mexico to western Panama
T. c. underwoodi, northwestern Costa Rica
T. c. aurantiiventris, central Costa Rica to western Panama
T. c. extimus,  eastern Darién Province in northeastern Panama
T. c. heothinus, Panama's Serranía del Darién
T. c. virginalis, western Colombia through western Ecuador into northwestern Peru
T. c. subtropicalis, central Colombia, especially the Magdalena and Cauca valleys
T. c. exoptatus, northern Venezuela (and Trinidad & Tobago?)
T. c. collaris, east of the Andes from Colombia south to northern Bolivia and east through the Guianas and much of west central Brazil (and Trinidad & Tobago?)
T. c. castaneus, southeastern Colombia south to eastern Peru and northern Bolivia and into northwestern Brazil; also eastern Brazil
Clements places T. c. exoptatus in Trinidad & Tobago; the IOC places T. c. collaris there instead.
In South America the collared trogon inhabits humid lowland evergreen forest, both primary and well-established secondary. In Mexico and Central America it inhabits those forest types and in addition humid montane, semideciduous, and pine-evergreen forests. It is found as high as 2,400 m (7,900 ft) in Mexico and 2,300 m (7,500 ft) in Costa Rica, but in the Andes it is mostly below 1,300 m (4,300 ft) in Ecuador and 1,200 m (3,900 ft) in Peru.


The collared trogon usually perches between the higher understory and the lower part of the canopy. It is usually seen singly or in pairs, but small groups may gather outside the breeding season.


The collared trogon eats small fruits (such as berries) and invertebrates such as caterpillars, crickets, cicadas, beetles, and phasmids. They often accompany the edges of mixed-species foraging flocks but do not mix with the other members.


The collared trogon's nesting season is highly variable across the species' wide distribution, beginning as early as November in French Guiana and as late as April in Venezuela. It nests in cavities in decaying wood or arboreal termite nests; the cavity is often so shallow that much of the bird is visible. The normal clutch size is two eggs. Both sexes incubate the eggs and care for the young.


The collared trogon's song varies geographically. The Mexican and Central American populations sing "a plaintive 2-3 noted kyow'-kyow or caow' caow, and a faster kyow kyow-kyow". South American songs are described as "a series of mellow whistled notes, usually with a stuttered introductory note: whi'whi whew-whew-whew." Calls include "a prolonged charr" and a "snorting chur-r-r-r".


The IUCN has assessed the collared trogon as being of Least Concern. It has a very large, though not quantified, population and a very large range.


The elegant trogon (Trogon elegans) (formerly the "coppery-tailed" trogon) is a near passerine bird in the trogon family. Along with the eared quetzal, it is the most poleward-occurring species of trogon in the world, ranging from Guatemala in the south as far north as the upper Gila River in Arizona and New Mexico. The most northerly populations of subspecies ambiguus are partially migratory, and the species is occasionally found as a vagrant in southeasternmost and western Texas.
It is a resident of the lower levels of semi-arid open woodlands and forests. It nests 2–6 metres (7–20 ft) high in an unlined shallow cavity, usually selecting an old woodpecker hole, with a typical clutch of 2–3 eggs.


This species is 28–30 centimetres (11–12 in) long and weighs 60–78 grams (2.1–2.8 oz) (average 68 grams (2.4 oz)). Like other trogons, elegant trogons have distinctive male and female plumages (sexual dimorphism), with soft feathers.  Both sexes have a white undertail with fine horizontal black barring. The undertail also has large white tips spaced evenly ending in a black terminal band. Both have a yellow bill, orange-red undertail coverts and lower belly, and a white horizontal breast stripe.
The male elegant trogon has a metallic deep green head, upper breast and back, black face and throat, and red-orange lower breast and belly. He shows grey upperwing coverts. The female has a metallic bronze head, upper breast, back, upper tail and upperwing coverts. She shows a dull white upper belly, and a small white vertical stripe behind the eye.
The usual call is a croaking "co-ah co-ah co-ah". The trogon will also include some chattering notes.
The elegant trogon is listed as endangered in the state of New Mexico. It prefers to live in conditions that would favor the presence of pineoak woodlands and local water making it particularly susceptible to disturbance.


Elegant trogons feed on insects and fruit, often taken in flight. Their broad bills and weak legs reflect their diet and arboreal habits. Although their flight is fast, they are reluctant to fly any distance. They typically perch upright and motionless.


T. elegans has five recognized subspecies, including the nominate subspecies:
T. e. ambiguus Gould, 1835
T. e.  canescens Van Rossem, 1934
T. e.  elegans Gould, 1834
T. e.  goldmani Nelson, 1898
T. e.  lubricus J. L. Peters, 1945


The slaty-tailed trogon (Trogon massena) is a near passerine bird in the family Trogonidae, the quetzals and trogons. It is found in Mexico, throughout Central America, and in Colombia and Ecuador.


Three subspecies of slaty-tailed trogon are recognized as of 2021: the nominate T. m. massena, T. m. hoffmanni, and T. m. australis. The last has sometimes been treated as a subspecies of black-tailed trogon (T. melanurus) or as a separate species.


Trogons have distinctive male and female plumages, with soft, often colorful, feathers. The slaty-tailed trogon is 30 to 35.5 cm (12 to 14 in) long and weighs about 140 to 155 g (4.9 to 5.5 oz). The nominate male has an orange-red bill and a dull black face, chin, and upper throat with a red to orange ring around the eye. The upperparts are metallic green that tends to golden green on the back and bluish green on the crown and rump. The breast is metallic green and the belly and vent deep red. The folded wing has fine black and white vermiculation that looks gray at a distance. The upperside of the four central tail feathers are metallic green to bronzy green with black tips, the next pair mostly black, and the outermost pair entirely black. The undersides of the tail feathers are slate gray with black tips. The female replaces most of the male's green with gray that is paler on the upper breast than on the upperparts. The upperside of the tail is black. The female's maxilla is dusky gray.
The male T. m. hoffmanni's plumage is essentially the same as the nominate's but the upperside of the tail is more golden. T. m. australis is smaller than the nominate. Compared to the nominate, the male's uppertail is bluish green and the female's darker gray. The male's undertail is browner than the nominate's and there is more metallic green on the face and throat.


The nominate subspecies of slaty-tailed trogon is found on the Caribbean slope from southern Mexico through Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala into Nicaragua. T. m. hoffmanni is found on the Caribbean and Pacific slopes of  Costa Rica and Panama, and also in extreme northwestern Colombia. T. m. australis is found in western Colombia and far northwestern Ecuador. The species primarily inhabits the midstory to the canopy of tropical evergreen forest and mature secondary forest, and can also be found in gallery forest, coffee plantations, and mangroves. It is a bird of the lowlands, reaching only 600 m (2,000 ft) in Mexico and northern Central America. It is found locally as high as 1,200 m (3,900 ft) in Costa Rica, 1,400 m (4,600 ft) in Panama, and 1,100 m (3,600 ft) in Colombia.


The slaty-tailed trogon forages for fruits and insects by sallying or hover gleaning from a perch. It often follows white-faced capuchin monkeys (Cebus capucinus and C. imitator) to catch insects displaced by them.


The slaty-tailed trogon's breeding season varies geographically, but appears to span from February to July overall. Males and females display to each other by raising the tail and fluffing the uppertail covert feathers. It nests as high as 15 m (49 ft) in a cavity excavated in an occupied termite nest or decaying tree trunk. Both sexes excavate the nesting chamber. The typical clutch is two or three white or bluish-white eggs, and both sexes incubate them.


The slaty-tailed trogon's song is "a steady deliberate series of cow or cue notes"; another description is "a deep full-throated wuk, wuk, wuk …." Its calls include "a quiet clucking huh-huh-huh-huh" and a "chuckling chatter".


The IUCN has assessed the slaty-tailed trogon as being of Least Concern. It has a large range, and though its population has not been quantified it is believed to be stable. No immediate threats have been identified. However, "The primary threats to this species are logging of mature forests, and habitat conversion for agriculture."


The black-headed trogon (Trogon melanocephalus) is a species of bird in the family Trogonidae. It is found in Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forest, subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest, and heavily degraded former forest.


This trogon measures 28 cm (11 in) and weighs about 89.4 g (3.15 oz). Males and females both have bright yellow underparts with a narrow band of white separating the yellow from a dark chest. Distinctive markings include a dark eye surrounded by a light blue eye ring and black tail feathers with broad white tips. Males have black heads and breasts with a blue-green sheen on the nape, back and wings. Females are similar, but duller yellow below and slate grey above, with none of the blue-green sheen of the male.
They eat both fruit and insects, which they capture during brief sallies from an exposed perch.
The black-headed trogon excavates its nest in active termitaria in the branches of trees. It lays 2–3 white eggs which are incubated for 17 days. Chicks are capable of flight 16–17 days after hatching.


Trollius asiaticus, the Asian globeflower, is an ornamental plant of the family Ranunculaceae, which is native to Asia and Europe. This plant usually grows in wet places, especially in grasslands and forests. It commonly grows to about 20 cm or higher.


Tropaeolum majus, the garden nasturtium, nasturtium, Indian cress or monks cress, is a species of flowering plant in the family Tropaeolaceae, originating in the Andes from Bolivia north to Colombia. An easily-grown annual or short-lived perennial with disc-shaped leaves and brilliant orange or red flowers, it is of cultivated, probably hybrid origin. It is not closely related to the genus Nasturtium (which includes watercress).


The species was originally called Nasturtium indicum ("Indian nasturtium") but the plant is not related to the true Nasturtium genus.
The current genus name Tropaeolum, coined by Linnaeus, means "little trophy". Tropaeolum is the diminutive form of the Latin tropaeum,  itself borrowed from Ancient Greek τρόπαιον : trópaion "trophy".
The Latin specific epithet majus means “larger” (the neuter form of major).


It is a fast-growing plant, with trailing stems growing to 0.9–1.8 m (3–6 ft). The leaves are large, nearly circular, 3 to 15 cm (1 to 6 in) in diameter, green to glaucous green above, paler below; they are peltate, with the 5–30 cm long petiole near the middle of the leaf, with several veins radiating to the smoothly rounded or slightly lobed margin.


Nasturtium leaves, like some other species, demonstrate the lotus effect, whereby rainwater falling on the surface gathers into globular droplets which roll off the leaf, leaving it dry and clean. Electron microscope scanning reveals tiny bundles of waxy particles which repel the water.


The flowers are 2.5–6 cm in diameter, with five petals, eight stamens, and a 2.5–3 cm long nectar spur at the rear; they vary from yellow to orange to red, frilled and often darker at the base of the petals. The fruit is 2 cm broad, three-segmented, each segment with a single large seed 1–1.5 cm long.


Das Elisabeth Linné-Phänomen, or the Elizabeth Linnæus Phenomenon, is the name given to the phenomenon of "flashing flowers". Especially at dusk, the orange flowers may appear to emit small "flashes". Once believed to be an electrical phenomenon, it is today thought to be an optical reaction in the human eye caused by the contrast between the orange flowers and the surrounding green. The phenomenon is named after Elisabeth Christina von Linné, one of Carl Linnaeus's daughters, who discovered it at age 19.


The garden nasturtium is used as a food plant by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including the dot moth and the garden carpet moth. A common pest found on nasturtiums is the caterpillar of the large white or cabbage white butterfly.


The species has become naturalized in parts of the United States (California, New York, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Virginia), as well as parts of Europe and Asia, Africa and Australia. It is listed as invasive in Hawaii and Lord Howe Island, Australia.


Tropaeolum majus cultivars are widely grown as easy annual plants, for poor, damp soil in full sun. The large seeds are easy to handle individually.
As they do not tolerate heavy frost they are best sown under glass in heat, and planted out after all danger of frost has passed. Alternatively, as they are fast-growing, they may be sown in situ in May or June.
Many flower colours are available, in the warm spectrum from cream through yellow, orange, red and maroon. Some have highly decorative marbling on the leaves.
The groups Whirlybird Series and Alaska Series have gained the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit.


All of the above-ground parts of the plants are edible. The flower has most often been consumed, making for an especially ornamental salad ingredient; it has a slightly peppery taste reminiscent of watercress, and is also used in stir fry. The flowers contain about 130 mg vitamin C per 100 g (3+1⁄2 oz), about the same amount as is contained in parsley. Moreover, they contain up to 45 mg of lutein per 100 g, which is the highest amount found in any edible plant. The unripe seed pods can be harvested and dropped into spiced vinegar to produce a condiment and garnish, sometimes used in place of capers.


Some native South Americans used the plant medicinally, apparently due to its antibiotic and antibacterial properties. Some Europeans ate it to treat urinary and genital infections.