A Plant A Day Till Spring – Day 14 – White Trillium

“Perfect Light” – Trillium grandiflorum – Spring 2013 – Frick Park – Pittsburgh, PA

“A Plant a Day till Spring” will highlight one plant a day, starting on the winter solstice (December 21, 2013)… And ending on the vernal equinox (March 20, 2014)… If all goes to plan I will be starting with old Snowdrop photos from 2013… And ending with new photos of Snowdrops in 2014…

Seven Days of Spring Wildflowers

April 23rd, 2013… Bright green buds breaking against a baby blue sky… Hiking through Frick Park enjoying the air… As I walked the path I noticed a sea of white above me on the hillside… After a short hike up the slope… I found myself surrounded in White Trillium and Dutchman’s Breeches…  I sat for a while… Took some photographs… Became familiar with the colony… Trillium is a magical plant that I will seek out every spring from now on… If for nothing else than to reproduce the feeling I got the first time I found one…

“Laughing Hello” – Trillium grandiflorum – Spring 2013 – Frick Park – Pittsburgh, PA

Trillium grandiflorum… Known by many common names… “White Trillium”, “Great White Trillium”, and “White Wake-Robin” are among the more popular ones… It is a perennial that grows from a short rhizome… Producing a single… Showy white flower atop a whorl of three leaves… The leaves and the stem share a dark green color that often persists into fall… The single root will produce colonies that can become very large…

Trillium grandiflorum has a pink form… It is very uncommon and it should be noted that all Trillium grandiflorum turn pink a few days before wilting… This should not be confused for the much rarer pink form that actually blooms a light shade of rose-pink…

“Among the Colony” – Trillium grandiflorum – Spring 2013 – Frick Park – Pittsburgh, PA

Trillium grandiflorum has long been thought to be self pollinating… This is a result of a lack of insects during flowering period… The “Science” guys have proven this to not be the case… In fact… They have actually proven Trilliums are not self-compatible… They produce an enormous amount of seeds during years when pollen is plentiful… And they rest on years when it is not…

Fruits are released in the summer… Each fruit contains around 16 seeds… These seeds are typically dispersed by ants… The seeds have an oil-rich body attached to them… This oil causes the ant to believe it has encountered a corpse… The ant then carries it back to the nest… Ants are the only animal that transports the seeds… White Trillium is a favorite food of white-tailed deer… Where ants can transport the seeds 30′ from the nest… Deer have a much larger range and are often responsible for random patches found in the woods…

NATIVE PLANTS DO NOT TRANSPLANT WELL AND SHOULD BE LEFT IN THE WILD… It takes a great deal of experience to transplant from the wild… 99% of the time your transplants will be dead before you even get back in your car… Please don’t dig wildflowers…

plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello

New To writing and never had to site sources before… These “Plant a Day Till Spring” posts are simply intended to kill time until spring… My source is Wikipedia.org… The photography is all my own… And I am adding my own information… But much of this is just related from the web…

This website and all of the information presented within is provided free by the author… Me… It is my sole opinion and is not representative of anyone other than myself… Although this website is free… I sell prints of my photography here – www.society6.com/chriscondello – or you can contact me directly with questions at – c.condello@hotmail.com – Although it isn’t a requirement… It helps…

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