Rhizomes short, stout, praemorse. Scapes 1-2, semidecumbent, decumbent, or weakly erect (especially in cultivation), S-shaped, round in cross section, 0.6-1.8 dm, glabrous. Bracts resting on or near ground surface, horizontally spreading, sessile; blade strongly mottled on each side of central light green stripe in shades of light green, dark green, bronze green, and dark purple, mottling becoming obscure with age, ovate to elliptic, rounded-tapered ± equally from base to tip from widest point, 5-12 × 6-10 cm, apex rounded or weakly acute. Flower borne directly on bracts, odor of putrid meat; sepals divergent, somewhat recurved, green, maroon streaked, lanceolate, 17-42 × 5-9.5 mm, margins entire, flat, apex rounded-acute; petals long-lasting, erect, ± connivent, ± concealing stamens and ovary, dark brownish maroon, greenish purple, or streaked with yellow, usually not spirally twisted, narrowly elliptic-lanceolate to oblanceolate, 2.5-5.5 × 0.6-1 cm, thick-textured, margins entire, ± flat, apex acute; stamens erect, incurved, 12-20 mm; filaments ± straight, reddish brown, 1-2 mm, slender; anthers ± straight, dark purple, 4-20 mm, ± thick, dehiscence introrse; connectives brown-purple, extending 1-2.5 mm beyond anther sacs, apex acute; ovary green-purple, ovoid, 6-angled, 5-10 mm; stigmas erect, divergent-recurved, distinct, linear, 2-4 mm, uniformly thin. Fruits baccate, dark maroon-purple, fragrance unreported, ovoid, 6-winged or -angled apically, 0.7-1 cm, pulpy, moist.

Flowering late winter--spring (early Mar--Apr). Rich mixed deciduous forested slopes, bluffs, stream-flats, lower slopes at edge of small stream floodplains; of conservation concern; 50--100 m; Ga., S.C.

Trillium reliquum recently has been reported from Alabama; I have not seen specimens from there. Otherwise, the species occurs in Clay, Early, and Richmond counties, Georgia, and in Aiken County, South Carolina. It is currently listed as an endangered species in the United States.