Rhizome horizontal, white, very slender-elongated, brittle; inter-nodes elongated. Scapes 1-2, round in cross section, 1.5-3.2 dm, ca. 2.5-3 times longer than bracts, slender, glabrous. Bracts often downturned but leaves held well away from ground, sessile; blade mottled darker green, mottling becoming obscure in age, lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate-elliptic, 5-8.3 × 2-3.3 cm, not glossy, apex blunt or acute. Flower erect, no odor reported; sepals recurved basally and declining to ± same plane of and alternating with leaves, green, lanceolate, 13-20 × 5-7 mm, margins entire, apex acute; petals long-lasting, erect, ± connivent, not fully concealing stamens and ovary, maroon-red, purple, greenish tan, or 2-colored, claw dark reddish maroon basally, often twisted, linear to narrowly spatulate, 2.8-6.6 × 20-40 cm, widest above middle, thick-textured, basally clawed, margins entire, apex acute, claw to ± 1/2 as long as expanded limb; stamens incurved, 13-21 mm; filaments purple, slender; anthers weakly to strongly incurved, purple, 4-6 mm, ± slender, dehiscence introrse; connectives weakly to strongly incurved, purple, extending 1 mm beyond anthers; ovary dark purple, ovoid-rhomboid, 6-angled, 6-7 mm; stigmas erect, somewhat divergent-recurved, distinct, purple, nearly linear, obscurely subulate, 3-4 mm, weakly fleshy. Fruits baccate, purplish, odorless, 6-angled, prolonged angle folds making fruit appear almost winged, 0.7-1.2 cm, pulpy. 2n = 10.

Flowering later winter--spring (Feb--early May). Alluvial soils, floodplains, rocky upland woodlands, brushy thickets, canebrakes, heavy shade, or thin, open woods; 20--200 m; Ala., Fla., Ga., S.C., Tenn.

Trillium lancifolium occurs mostly in small, regionally disjunct populations.