Trillium Fields

I went on a wildflower walk with Plein air interculterel in Mont Royal park last night. The forest has leafed out considerably in the week since I previously went walking there, and the woods are an intense, unphotographable spring green.

The trillium are all blooming!

White trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) may be the official symbol of government for the province of Ontario, but it seems to do well here in Québec too! They have the readily-identifyable three petals and three leaves (that picture up top is deceptive, since it’s a trillium and a maple sapling).

Botanists will tell you those three leaves are technically bracts, and that most of the real action takes place underground. Trillium are slow growing plants: a rhizome will be nearly a decade old before it produces a flower stalk, and individual trillium plants can live a really, really long time (i.e., over fifty years, and maybe as long as seventy or more).