Trillium. and: Claytonia's Range
J.E. Shields (Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:22:00 PDT)

Claytonia here in Indiana is C. virginica. In the Smoky Mountains, where I
was the past few days, there is another species, Claytonia caroliniana,
with somewhat broader leaves than virginica has. I'm not familiar with C.
sibirica. Their corms grow very deep in the earth, perhaps 8 to 12 inches,
and are indeed tiny. I think the seed may be somewhat ephemeral, but they
do increase readily from fresh seed. I have some C. virginica scattered
around my place.

The Trillium were in full bloom up to about 3000 ft. in the
Smokies. Travelling back and forth across the mountains, we saw Trillium
grandiflorum at about 2000 to ca 3500 ft., T. simile below 2500 ft., T.
erectum album from ca. 2000 ft up to the summit (but only open to around
3000 ft.), and T. luteum everywhere around Gatlinburg up to about 3500
ft. South of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and east into North
Carolina, we saw T. cuneatum. We saw some red T. erectum in one small area
in North Carolina, rather unusual for the T. erectum in this area, most of
which has white flowers. I saw my first T. catesbaei there too, just a
couple days ago.

There are more species of Trillium in that area, but we would have had to
go there in another week or two to see them in bloom.

Jim Shields
back home again in central Indiana, USA

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Jim Shields USDA Zone 5 Shields Gardens, Ltd.
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