Coptis trifolia(L.) Salisb.

threeleaf goldthread

WFO wfo-0000619881 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Coptis trifolia, photographed by Mary Krieger
fig. a Mary Krieger, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-10 / obs. 205024329
Coptis trifolia, photographed by Nick Kleinschmidt
fig. b Nick Kleinschmidt, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203388246
Coptis trifolia, photographed by Peter Nathaniel Boyer
fig. c Peter Nathaniel Boyer, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205909975
Coptis trifolia, photographed by Steven Lamonde
fig. d Steven Lamonde, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205753223
Coptis trifolia, photographed by Carter Dorscht
fig. e Carter Dorscht, CC0 1.0 / obs. 203861608
Coptis trifolia, photographed by Nick Kleinschmidt
fig. f Nick Kleinschmidt, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203387719
Coptis trifolia, photographed by Sean Grasing
fig. g Sean Grasing, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201844336
Coptis trifolia, photographed by Sean Grasing
fig. h Sean Grasing, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201842460

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Flowering n = 2,006 observations

Peak flowering in May, from 2,006 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 14 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Anemone groenlandica O.F.Müll.
  • Anemone groenlandica Oeder
  • Chryza borealis Raf.
  • Coptis daisetsuensis Tatew. ex Miyabe & Tatew.
  • Coptis groenlandica (Oeder) Fernald
  • Coptis trifolia subsp. groenlandica (Oeder) Hultén
  • Coptis trifolia subsp. trifolia
  • Coptis trifolia var. groenlandica (Oeder) Fassett
  • Coptis trifolia var. semiplena Miyabe & Tatew.
  • Helleborus pumilus Salisb.
  • Helleborus trifoliatus Houtt.
  • Helleborus trifolius L.
  • Helleborus trilobus Lam.
  • Isopyrum trifolium Britton

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.