Friday Fabulous Flower - Earliest wild flower

 

This little beauty is often missed because it blooms so early, March 16 this year.  This is Trillium nivale, often called the snow trillium.  The small scale was added to show how big this flower is.  Tucked in among leaf litter it must stand some 7-8 cm tall and the flowers are some 5-6 cm side.  Each flower sits a top a whorl of three oval leaves.  This is one of earliest native wood land wildffowers of this area.  TPP found this species in a woodland park much to everyone's surprise.