The Promise of Trillium Seeds

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. 

Trillium Update

I found these three Large Flowered Trilliums just where I’ve seen them growing for years.  That might not seem unusual, but ten days ago there was no sign of their emergence, despite the fact that others of their species were already flowering.  During that ten day time span, these plants went from nothing to showing an unfurling flower bud.  I’ve never seen such a prolonged period of emergence displayed by this population of trilliums.  In most years, all of the plants open their blooms at roughly the same time.  This staggered pattern of blooming makes it more difficult to achieve my goal of producing viable trillium seed from this small population of plants.

The plant that was just unfurling its bloom ten days ago has finally produced a pollen producing flower.  This is the second of what appears will only be three blooming plants this year.

With two flowers to work with, I set about helping with the transfer of pollen between plants.  If I’m working with several plants, I’ll use a pollination brush to gather and transfer pollen.  Since there were only two plants in this case, I chose to remove an entire pollen covered anther and apply it directly to the receiving stigma.  No chance of missing that way.

Digital cameras make it easy to document the location of plants of interest.  This population of trilliums is one that I’ve been monitoring for several years and it’s important to know exactly where the plants are so you can track losses or additions to the population.  After taking close up shots of a plant, I’ll take a mid range shot showing the plant’s location in respect to an identifiable landmark.  In this case, it’s clear that the plant is beside the double trunked tree with exposed roots.

Next I’ll take a wider shot showing the plant and landmark as it’s situated on the landscape.  By lining myself up with the various objects in the photo, I can come back to this point and reestablish the exact point from which I took the shot.  From there I can locate the site of the plant.

The lone trillium living on the gravel bar near the creek has survived.  It had to maneuver around a bit of flood debris, but it is still alive. I’ve seen this plant bloom a couple of times, but most years it seems to be recovering from the hazards of life on a floodplain.  The Blue Jay Barrens population of Large Flowering Trillium seems to be slowly increasing.  Hopefully, this trend will continue.

Large Flowered Trillium 2012

The Large Flowered Trilliums are blooming a month ahead of last year.  Although I haven’t made an official count for this year, it looks like the number of plants is slightly below last year.  One cluster of three plants that has consistently produced one or two blooms per year appears to be completely missing.  I couldn’t find any evidence to suggest whether it had sprouted and been eaten or if it had just failed to grow.

The plant with the bloom was just beginning to come out of the ground two weeks ago. 

Three young plants that I discovered last year are back up.  I don’t know if they will get any larger, but at this point they’re identical in size to what I saw last spring.  I suppose it will be a few more years before they’re ready to flower.

The steep, almost vertical bank that contains most of these plants suffered some damage from the intense rain we had in early March.  Dropping 1.2 inches of rain on the ground in five minutes results in some intense overland flow and anything not firmly anchored is going to move.  Most of the dead leaf cover ended up at the bottom of the hill. 

Fortunately, there was little loss of soil and most of the Trilliums are still in place.

If this bloom opens, it will make a total of two for this season.  I’m hoping that it opens soon, so I can take my pollination brush out and make the plants share some pollen.  I’ve been hand pollinating these flowers for the last few years in an effort to get some viable seeds.  The fact that I’m beginning to see small plants may mean I’m having some success.

Large-flowered Trillium Expansion

I’m not sure if explosion is the right term to use in describing what happened to my population of Large-Flowered Trilliums, Trillium grandiflorum, but I’m going to use it anyway. I was excited to find that both my total number of trillium plants and the total number of blooming plants has doubled over what I counted last year. Saying that it went from 6 plants to 12 doesn’t sound quite as impressive. Things are trending in the right direction and that always makes me happy.

This plant, as well as the one in the first photo, bloomed last year. The late season drought doesn’t seem to have hurt them any.

I’ve never seen this plant bloom before. It has been a nice, robust plant for several years, so I knew it was only a matter of time.

This plant is part of a threesome grouping and has never bloomed before. In fact, I had never seen these plants before. They have obviously been there for quite a while, but they’re hidden in a little sheltered nook a little ways around the hill from the other nine. These three plants really take the power out of my explosion since they should have been included in last year’s count. That would make my total increase only 33% instead of 100%. Fortunately, my measure is the number actually counted, so I can legitimately claim the 100% increase.

The steep slopes on this site help to keep predators away from the plants. Deer go either direction and find easier slopes to climb, so they’re not likely to browse the trilliums. During wet weather the hill is far too steep and slippery for me to climb. I would assume that most large animals, such as myself, would try to work their way around this area.

The really exciting part of my Trillium population explosion is the addition of three small plants. This is the smallest of the three.

It’s encouraging to see that my plants are producing some viable seed. I have a photo taken three years ago that shows this spot to be trillium free. Five years ago, my pollinating brush began visiting the two or three blooms that typically showed up. Maybe I’m doing the right things here.

The big rock sticking out of the hillside is about as good a marker as any you could find. I shouldn’t have any trouble finding this exact spot each spring. Is it too early to start worrying that the trilliums are going to crowd out everything else on the hillside?

Large-flowered Trillium

Large-flowered Trillium, Trillium grandiflorum, is a plant that is often seen as a mass of plants carpeting the woodland floor. The current Blue Jay Barrens population now consists of eight plants; 1 blooming, 1 with a developing flower bud and 6 non-flowering. This may appear to be a dismally small population, but it’s twice the number of plants I counted ten years ago. At this rate, there ought to be a carpet of blooms in about 60 years.

The trilliums grow on one of the steep slopes I discussed before. The steepness protected the slopes from many abusive activities and now discourages browsing deer from feeding here.

This is one of the newer members of the group. Large-flowered Trilliums have to grow for several years before flowering, so it takes a long time to build up a population. It’s also a plant that is slow to spread to new areas, because it depends on ants to scatter the seeds. A juicy morsel is attached to the seed that causes the ants to carry the seed back to the colony. After the ants finish their meal, the seed is carried out and discarded. This practice of ants dispersing seeds is fairly common among woodland flowers.

Fifteen years ago, I was attracted to this spot by a single white bloom from a trillium growing here. This hillside is near a frequently walked trail and the fact that I had never seen the bloom before makes me think that this was a young plant with its first flower. That single plant has now grown to be this group of three. Only one will be blooming this year. If the flower can produce mature pollen before the other bloom fades, I’ll bring out my pollination brush and make sure the plants share their pollen load. I’m trying to do all I can to ensure a good crop of seeds.

This plant should soon be old enough to start blooming. In another couple of years, I should begin seeing five or six blooms each spring. That won’t quite make a carpet, but I’m sure my imagination can fill in the gaps.