It was 14 years ago that Charlotte and I had the great
pleasure of spending an entire day sharing our spring woods,
along with a few other nearby outstanding botanical areas, with
one of England’s greatest botanists, Grenville Lucas, curator of
the herbarium at Kew Gardens in London at the time. The day
before he and a group of other notable botanists had toured the
Ridges Sanctuary with me to see the awesome display of lake
irises, arctic primroses and other rare wildflowers.
Never in all the years I led people in the field had I
experienced a more perceptive botanist who, so help me, didn’t
miss a single plant. Fortunately I had done my homework during
several weeks prior to that much-anticipated day and was prepared
to share the scientific name of practically every plant we came
upon, because that’s precisely what Grenville had expected.
The quick outing to enjoy one of the finest remaining
old-growth maple-beech-hemlock woods near our home produced a
very exciting find. Grenville, with his incredibly sharp eyes,
found a half dozen small trilliums whose three white petals each
had a green band of leaf-like tissue running its entire length.
He was so absolutely positive that he had discovered a new
species of trillium that he immediately began envisioning its
new scientific name, such as Trillium Lukasi, or
something reflecting a combination of our last names of Lucas
and Lukes.
He had already returned to England when I learned that it is
not uncommon for these striking variations to occur in nature,
resulting from a mycoplasma-like infection. The literature also
went on to inform the reader that more than one botanist had in
past years attempted to claim the plant as a new species,
naturally to be named in his or her honor. Yes, Mr. Lucas was
quite disappointed upon receiving the news from me, but that
didn’t reduce the high praise he showered us with following his
hike in our woods. Hopefully he will return another year.
The more the 38 species of trilliums native to North America
have been studied the more abnormal and mutant forms of this
wonderful genus are discovered. In fact it is the large-flowered
trillium, Trillium grandiflorum, by far the most abundant
species in Wisconsin, that produces the most of these unusual
"sports." Now, with so many millions at the peak of
their bloom, is the time to go exploring for some of these
interesting oddities.
A four-parted trillium has occurred several times along our
path to the garden in recent years. However, it is never the
same "quadrillium" that blossoms a second time, always
a different plant in a slightly different location. The
generally accepted thought is that these four-parted plants
resulted from an injury to the plant that produced some form of
cell division errors in the bud the year before, and that the
following year that plant would revert to being a typical
three-parted trillium . It is very rare for these four-parted
plants to be genetic and permanent. However they are very
exciting to discover and to savor!
A small trillium plant having three sets of three leaves and
no blossom has appeared in the very same spot for the second
year in a row along our path through the woods to the garden.
We’ve made photographic records of the strange abnormality and
will be watching it carefully from year to year. Hopefully it
will produce some highly unusual floral formation in the future.
Other people who have had similar plants watched them become
more and more bizarre by the year until finally the plants
deteriorated and died.
A phone call came from our plant biologist friend, Max Martin,
yesterday telling of an unusual trillium form that other people
had recently discovered in their hardwoods in the central part of
the county. Charlotte and I joined Max and his wife Dee to share
in the excitement of seeing a truly beautiful trillium, not one
but three. One of the plants appeared to be a double, or at
least the two tall robust plants were growing very near to each
other.
Each of the blossoms had numerous petals, perhaps two or three
dozen, producing what appeared to be a lovely white rose. In
fact the weight of the unusually large number of petals on each
of the plants caused them to droop downward, unlike the hundreds
of other normal upright trilliums growing nearby.
Frederick W. Case, Jr., in his fabulous book,
"Trilliums," has found during his years of intensive
trillium research, that these multipetaled forms are stable,
healthy, sterile plants of great beauty. It is a known fact that
gardeners and collectors anxiously seek with great fervor these
highly ornamental forms and are willing to pay high prices to
obtain them.
Mr. Case refers to a plant such as this as a double form, that
is, a plant in which all the reproductive organs have mutated to
petals. Our friend, Max, with his strong botanical background,
thought it was highly unusual to have two very similar
"double forms" growing within 15 feet of one another.
Imagine how many acres of trillium woods one would have to
explore in order to find another of these rare beauties.
Knowing that these multipetaled large-flowered trilliums are
sterile but stable, likely to appear in their same extraordinary
beauty in future years, will give us good reason to want to
return to their highly-secluded environment next spring. Three
cheers for the trilliums and their incredible forms and
bmutations.
The large-flowered trillium has more
unusual and interesting mutations, such as this multi-petalled form,
than any of the other 38 species in North America.
This column appeared in the Door County Advocate
on 05/29/2004.
© Copyright 2004 Roy Lukes. All rights reserved.
