Trillium 2009

[Hristo]

Hans,
Try this site,you need a recent version of Java to run it and a ruler helps too!

http://utc.usu.edu/keys/trillium/Trillium.html

[Ed Alverson]

Hi there,
First time of flowering, bought as seedling of T.erectum many years ago, looks like T.parviflorum or T.albidum. Either one works for me as I haven't got them! 

Hristo, you might never be able to figure it out - in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, where the ranges of T. albidum and T. parviflorum meet, the sessile flowered trilliums are more or less intermediate between the two species, and seem to be neither one nor the other.  I call them T. albidum because they are not parviflorum, but this is less than satisfactory because they aren't quite true albidum like you find farther south.  So if your plant originated from this area, there is no satisfactory name!

Here are some photos of wild plants in a local forest in Eugene, where both T. ovatum and T. "albidum" grow, some times from the same clump!

[ichristie]

Hi all, what i have as Trillium parviflorum maybe looks the same as Tr albidum but the seed pos are totally different Trillium albidum has either green or bronze green seed pods and Tr parviflorum has black seed pods. I post some more pictures from the garden, fist is a good red Trillium hybrid probably Tr flexipes and Trillium simile then tr. simile Purple Haze.
Trillium simile Purple Haze raised by Mike and Polly Stone at  Askival, Fort William


 cheers ian the Christie kind.

[Hristo]

Ed, Ian, thanks for the advice, always fun to have a plant that science can't quite pin down!
Ian I hope this is not being rude or nosy but are your latest Erythroniums and Trilliums seed raised at Kirriemuir or bought in as adults? Either way the forms you are showing are stunners! Do you post to Bulgaria? 

[Robin Callens]

Does anybody know the names of these Trilliums?

Johannes,

The first one looks like Trillium stamineum with slightly abnormal petals and the second one could be T. cuneatum or something else.

Robin

[John Aipassa]

I agree with Ian regarding the berry colour of albidum and parviflorum.

I also have a broad petalled albidum too.

And I post a photo of an erectum with a tiny spider living in it, waiting for some small bug to enter for lunch. You can't actually see the spider. It is tucked away deep in the flower, but you can see some web of the little one on the photo.

Cheers,

[ichristie]

Hi Hristo, some of the Erythroniums are in a friends garden the rest are here in mine, as for the trilliums again some were plants from friends but most are seed raised here and i have had them for 20 years or so. I am afraid that i only have a few and none for sale however we have hundreds more seedlings growing well so you never know, cheers ian the Christie kind.

[Rodger Whitlock]

I remind everyone that Fred & Roberta Case's book, "Trilliums" (Timber Press 1997) keys out virtually all of the North American species. While it is not a true botanical monograph, the Cases have grown most of the species and also seen them growing wild, so the book is authoritative from a horticultural point of view. Second-hand copies start at about $40US and are quite plentiful. Bookfinder.com lists about 35 copies as I write.

My impression is that genus Trillium contains a large number of very similar species, many of which freely interbreed. The result is that hybrids are to be expected in gardens where more than one species is grown. In my own garden, I have a large group of trilliums grown from seed to which I refuse to put a name for this reason.

Not all trilliums are worth growing! Last year I purchased as Trillium undulatum what turned out to be T. recurvatum. For once, I saw an ugly trillium!

[Afloden]

 Melvyn, your last two look like cuneatum, see T. sessile below.

 Hans, the first unknown is likely as Robin said, T. stamineum, the second looks like ludovicianum or the new as yet unnamed Ruby Falls Trillium from Tennessee (to be called T. freemanii?). May I ask the source, privately if need be? The petals are too narrow for typical cuneatum.

 Ian, what does the T. simile smell like? Wet dogs or egg whites? It was not until the early 1990's when the Trillium erectum album began to be called T. simile in and around the Smoky Mountains and this is most of which is in cultivation. Having recently (three weeks ago) seen what is likely the true T. simile for the second time in the wild and smelled it I can say that J.K. Small was correct in saying it was fragrant.

 As far as I have seen in the wild, and that is many many populations from Kansas south and eastward to the coasts, I can say I have only come across one group that seems to hybridize with abandon, or it may be that the definitions of the species are too finely drawn. Trillium rugelii and T. vaseyi in a few areas in GA, NC, and SC really make some beautiful plants, all intermediate between the two. In many cases T. vaseyi grows in pure stands, but I have only seen one truly pure stand of T. rugelii. As far as the sessile species go, I have only seen hybrids where  T. cuneatum and T. luteum intersect just north of me. Other than that I have not seen any other hybrids in the wild between any two species and I have seen populations where T. stamineum and T. lancifolium grow together, T. stamineum, T. decumbens, and T. cuneatum, T. reliquum and T. aff. cuneatum, T. decipiens and T. reliquum, etc...  I have come across things that do not key though on occasion; a pedicillate species similar to vaseyi, but not, growing in pure populations of creamy flowered plants, and the aff. cuneatum above that looks kind of like T. foetidissimum, but growing near Atlanta, GA. Sadly the only western species I have seen is T. ovatum. The only eastern species I have not seen is T. cernuum.

 Below are T. sessile, T. simile, T. underwoodii, T. cuneatum double, and t. cuneatum yellow.

 Aaron Floden
 Knoxville, TN

[Stephen Vella]

Nice Trilliums Aaron, especially the T underwoodii but what is that growing with them, looks Podophyllum like?

cheers

[ichristie]

Dear Aaron, thanks for all your information, I would like to add more information about Trillium simile, firstly the flowers are very big with superb quality felted petals and as the picture shows are distinctive shape plus the pollen is purple quite visable, the Trillium simile Purple haze I agree could have some hybrid in it but again neither are like the picture you show as Trillium simile. I will get some more pictures and smell the flowers later today,  cheers Ian the Christie kind.

[Afloden]

Stephen,
 
 That is a Podophyllum, one of my stable variegated clones of P. peltatum. It is a nice weed!

Ian,

 With the purple pollen I would say it is of T. rugelii descent. I'll get some pictures taken of all the hybrids later today to compare them too. The wash of purple over the white petals is common in many of the hybrids. I have some rugelii hybrids where the flower is above the leaves, but with the lighter purple ovary and purple stamens, vs the near black ovary and yellow stamens of T. simile. Some forms of rugelii are fragrant also, like Magnolia or tea roses.

Aaron Floden
Knoxville, TN
   

[Gert Jan]

Hi all   

I must say it is an amazing world , the world of Trilliums!
Stunning pictures all! I am learning a lot here.

Keep posting the pictures and the info

Gert Jan

[Paul T]

Aaron,

Love the underwoodii... but oh that green cuneatum!    It glows!!!!!  Never seen the like.   

[Mike Ireland]

A batch of Trillium kurabayashii seedlings flowering this year for the first time have produced a very mixed palette of colour forms.  All seed from the very dark form in the first picture.