Misnamed white Trillium ID

[kirsitn]

A Trillium I bought as angustipetalum is now flowering for the first time, and since the flower is white, I assume that it is not angustipetalum. It is quite similar to my T.albidum, so I'm wondering if there are any other Trillium species which are similar to albidum, or can I safely change the label to albidum?

[Paul T]

Kristin,

Given how easily the sessile Trilliums hybridise I wouldn't be putting a name on it at all unless you knew where it originated from "originally".  Even Trillium experts have difficulties telling the sessile types apart, so we mere mortals have no hope.  I'd be labelling it myself as "Trillium - sessile white" or something like that, or if you really need to give it the name albidum then put it as T. aff albidum, which sort of indicates you aren't really sure.  You don't really want to pass it or it's seeds on to others as albidum if you aren't sure it is.

[kirsitn]

Thanks for the advice. I'll leave it at Trillium sp. white, then.  :)Didn't actually know that Trilliums were easy to hybridize since I've only bought (presumably) true species before.

[Afloden]

Hello,
 
 Do you have a photo, preferably a close up of the flower?

 Albidum should have no purple/pink/maroon pigment in the petals, ovary or stamens/filaments. But, thats not always the case where it grows with chloropetalum and they hybridize.

 Also, I would say that albidum has a few spots on the leaves that fade quickly. The scent should also be intensely sweet and make you want to lie down and breath it in.

 Parviflorum has small white petals that are fairly narrow and it DOES have some pigmentation on its parts.

 Paul, I disagree on identification. Yes, some populations of plants are difficult to nudge into the part of the key and cuneatum has an immense amount of variation, but most species are fairly easy. Keys are supposed to be written for the lay person, but often times they are written with so many botanical terms that you need a dictionary to decipher what they mean or what they thought they meant.

 All the best,

 Aaron Floden
 Knoxville, TN

[Paul T]

Aaron,

I am just going by discussions on Trillium-L where even the experts in the country and locale of origin have trouble agreeing on what something is.  If THEY don't know what it is then there isn't much chance of us managing it. 

The other problem is that the sessiles easily hybridise, and if we then give them a species name we're muddying what is under that species.  Unless you can trace it back to an original wild source I think that it is very difficult to be sure of any ID, because a hybrid, while it may key close to a species, still isn't the correct species (if you know what I mean).

That said, I have a cuneatum that I received as something else and knew when I looked at photos of that species that it had to be incorrect.  I sent some photos to an expert and they took a look at it and pretty much guaranteed it was cuneatum, so I have changed the label.  From what I have heard most of the whites tend to be labelled as albidum, but I do wonder how many of them actually ARE albidum.  Even in the wild the species divisions are pretty thin, particularly when there is hybrid gradation between two different species, or individuals of a species that resemble other species.

I'm way over on the other side of the world and never likely to see Trillium in the wild, and quite probably never even see a pure version of many of the species despite growing them from seed.  It really does make it difficult to do IDs of them, which is why I am coming to accept that the sessiles are so hopelessly mixed up and hybridised that it is going to be hard to be sure of any ID unless it was of wild seed or pollinated in protected conditions.

[kirsitn]

Thanks for another interesting clarification. I don't have any photo available at the moment (not at home), but I'll check my spring pictures when I get back home and maybe take a new one if it's still blooming by then.

[Maggi Young]

Trilliums are something else I have given up trying to name! One hears so many conflicting opinions from folks that I now believe that it is doubtful that a species can be clearly identified even if it is the only trillium growing for a distance of hundreds of miles in any direction!!  What with variation in wild plants, and hybridisation in cultivation, I am content now to just say... yep, nice trillium