The Large-flowered Trilliums have completed their bloom
stage and are proceeding with seed development.
Only three plants produced blooms this year and those blooms were
staggered over several weeks. Two of the
plants had overlapping blooming periods and I took the opportunity to transfer
pollen between those two flowers. This
is one of the plants that I hand pollinated.
The ovary on this plant is enlarging, so I’m hopeful that
seeds are being developed.
The second plant involved with the pollen transfer, lost its
flower. There was nothing left of the
flower stalk to indicate that the flower had been taken by some browsing
animal. I’m thinking that the flower
just failed to pollinate and dropped off.
This plant produced its bloom after those of the other two
plants had faded. Without another flower
to draw from, I was unable to perform any hand pollination here.
The fact that the flower parts have remained fresh, gives me
hope that this flower was naturally pollinated.
Large-flowered Trilliums generally do not self pollinate. This species does exist on neighboring
properties, so it’s possible that insect carried pollen was delivered to this
flower.
Now it’s just a matter of waiting to see if I get some
mature seed. I’ll take charge of
distributing any seeds that do develop. I’ve
been watching this small group of plants for over 25 years and natural methods
of seed dispersal haven’t done much to expand the Trillium population. It seems an appropriate time for some human
intervention.
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