Friday Fabulous Flower - snow Trillium

Oh, this really is a fabulous flower, and it really is Friday. This is Trillium nivale, the snow trillium, the smallest trillium and earliest flowering woodland wild flower in these parts. This species is a new addition to our gardens and trying to find a place where it could be seen and yet not over whelmed was quite a challenge; too bad we don't have one.  A sloping rock garden would be just right. This plant is about 3" tall and about 3" across when the leaves are fully expanded. It flowered on March 21st when other early spring wild flowers have yet to make an appearance; Hepatica buds are just beginning to show, bloodroot hasn't appeared, and the next earliest trillium around here, T. recurvatum, just has the tips of its shoots showing. This is truly a cheerful harbinger of spring, although another plant has that common name. It was nice to find this species available in the trade. (And dang but TPP's new iphone takes decent pictures.) 

Friday Fabulous Flower - Shooting star

One of the very handsome spring flowers in our prairies and open forest glades is the shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia). It's among one of the early flowering species in our prairies preceded only by the prairie lousewort, blue violet, and strawberry. A rosette of shining green leaves pops up and then produces a flowering scape 20-40 cm tall. The pendant flowers with the reflexed corolla, which can be white to pink to purple, produce the shooting star. Anyone familiar with bumblebees recognized one of their flowers right away, for example, compare this to a tomato flower. The conical whorl of anthers, each opening by a terminal pore, have their pollen removed when a bumblebee hanging upside down under the flower buzzes their flight muscles to hit a frequency that vibrates the pollen out onto the bee. Pollination occurs when at a subsequent flower the bee's fuzzy belly with a nice dusting of pollen contacts a stigma protruding from the cone of stamens. And like other spring ephemerals, the above ground parts die back by mid-summer leaving no trace.

Friday Fabulous Flower - ID Quiz

Name this plant. This makes a nice Friday fabulous flower not because it's gaudy, but because it's a much over looked component of our spring woodland wildflowers. So rather than give it away, let's see who's been observant, who's seen this beauty before. And even though natural in our area, the Phactor has only seen it a handfull of times. Maybe it doesn't get noticed because everyone is looking for morels. Hint: Pay close attention to the number of floral parts.