If conditions are ideal, a mature flowering-fruiting plant is produced in the seventh spring. Under poorer conditions, it might take up to 1O years to produce a mature plant. Some plants possibly live for 3O or more years. Pollination has not been carefully studied for persistent trillium, but casual observations indicate that the flowers are visited by such potential pollinators as bees, wasps, flies, ants, and butterflies. Observations of trilliums found in middle Tennessee indicate that beetles may also serve as pollinators.
Seed dispersal seems to be primarily by ants, which carry the seeds to their nests for food.
After feeding on the elaisome, a fleshy appendage of the seed, the ants then carry the seeds outside the nest. Most of the habitat is in Georgia on land owned by the Georgia Power Company. The South Carolina habitat is located on Georgia Power Company land partly within the general boundaries of the Sumter National Forest. Surveys conducted from 1983 to 1985 by the Georgia Power Company and others produced a total count of 2O,O28 plants. Only 1,7OO of these plants were found in South Carolina.