Apple #744: Birds of Paradise

Yes, it's been a while. But I am moved to Apple this topic because a friend who has been a Daily Apple fan revealed a question and I would like to find the answer for him.

This friend, let's call him Shalom, moved to Hawaii not long ago and has been planting and growing many fabulous flowers.  One of the flowers that bloomed recently is a bird of paradise.  He posted a photo of it on his facebook page, and many of us marveled at its beauty and strangeness.  I asked, "Do you know what pollinates that thing?  Is it, like, a pelican?" and he said, "I have no idea how this flower works."

Shalom's bird of paradise.
(the photo is Shalom's, which I stole from him)

What is an Apple Lady to do, but seek the answer?

• The flower of a bird of paradise, sometimes called a crane flower, looks complex, but once you know what all the parts are, you can see it works a lot like most flowers.

• The green and red and purplish canoe-shaped things at the bottom are actually modified leaves, called bracts. The "petals" of a poinsettia flower are also called bracts, if that helps.

• The bracts on a bird of paradise can be 4 to 8 inches long, depending on the age of the plant. 

• Most "normal" flowers have little green bits in between the petals called sepals. Before the flower blooms, when it's still closed up, it's the sepals that are closed up around the flower, protecting it. When the sepals relax and open up, the petals inside are revealed. On the bird of paradise, the sepals are the three gigantic orange things that stick up when the flower blooms.

• On the bird of paradise, the cluster of three vivid blue parts that jut out sideways from the orange sepals are the petals. There are actually three blue petals, but they join together to make an arrowhead shape and a little cup called the nectary where, as you would guess, the nectar is stored.

A side view of the strange shape formed by the three blue petals. Inside that opening is where the flower's nectar is located.
(Photo by seymourdaily at Digital Botanic Garden) 



Here's a different angle showing the way the three blue petals converge.
(Photo from Gardening Know How)

• On "normal" flowers, the female and male parts of the flower are contained within the shelter of the petals. The female parts look like the male parts on people -- they are all contained on one long pointy thing. The male parts of the flower are the several wispy things that surround the long pointy thing.

 

The female parts of a "normal" flower are labeled at the left: the stigma is the sticky thing at the top end of the style, which leads down to the ovary, which contains the ovule. All this together is the pistil. The male parts are labeled at the right: the anther is the knob on the end of each filament, and is where the pollen is produced. Anther plus filament = stamen.

The male and female parts within the blue parts of a bird of paradise: the long sticky-like pointy style, surrounded by filaments from which extend the anther, with the blue petals like a bird's beak around all of these.
(Photo from Texas A&M University's Vascular Plant Image Library)

• On a bird of paradise, the male and female parts are also housed within the petals. It, too has a very long pointy style that sticks out from among the petals and is surrounded by pollen-coated anthers that extend from filaments.

• A flower is pollinated when pollen from the anther gets transferred to the sticky stigma at the end of the style and fertilizes the ovule at the bottom of the style.  Same thing holds true for the bird of paradise.

• The question is, what insect or creature braves the bizarre shape that is the bird of paradise to touch the pollen and get it onto the sticky stigma?

• Answer: in its homeland of South Africa, it's a sunbird.  

The double-collared sunbird, one of the species of sunbird that pollinates a bird of paradise flower.
(Photo from Animalia Life)

• The sunbird's curved and slender beak makes it especially good at sucking the nectar out of flowers, which is exactly what it does to the bird of paradise. It also sucks the juice from figs and grapes and even bugs and spiders. 

 

This video demonstrates what happens when a bird lands on the blue petals, how the weight of the bird will cause that arrowhead-like pocket to flatten out and all the pollen on the filaments will then be exposed and can easily brush against the bird.



The bird in this photo is a Brown Honeyeater, and it's not standing on the blue petals but sticking its beak and pretty much its whole face into them. But you can see how it would get pollen all over its face, which would then be easily transferred to the next flower.
(Photo from this Bird of Paradise Pinterest page)

• The sunbird stands on the blue petals -- maybe like a diving board -- while they insert their beaks into the nectary to suck out the nectar, and the pollen on the filaments is exposed and gets dusted on their feet. When the sunbird flies to the next flower, the pollen on their feet is transferred to the next flower, fertilizing it.

• Sunbirds don't live in the US so if you have a bird of paradise in your garden, you'll need to pollinate it yourself. Here's how the San Francisco Chronicle says to do it:

Collect pollen by pressing on the arrow-shaped nectary [the boat-shaped thing in the blue petals] to expose the stamens. Rub a clean cotton swab over the stamens. Find a plant that comes from a different rhizome to pollinate. When you find a flower with a shiny, sticky stigma at the nectary tip, rub the pollen-coated swab across it. (from SFGate)

• Each flower lasts only about a week, so you'll want to get to pollinating pretty soon after it blooms.

• The fertilized bird of paradise flower will eventually dry up but within it will be seeds. When the seed pods open up, birds come and eat them and disperse them in the usual manner, allowing new plants to grow.

Bird of paradise seed pods filled with black and orange-tufted seeds
(Photo from Phillip's Natural World)


This gives you an idea of the size of the seeds. Here, they look about as big as large blueberries.
(Photo from The Adventures of Rock)

• If you're planting birds of paradise from seeds, soak them in water for 24 to 48 hours and remove the orange hairs before planting. It can take 8 weeks before germinating and once the plant is grown, it can be 4 to 7 years before it blooms. If you have to re-pot a bird of paradise, it can take a couple more years before it blooms again.

• So if you're growing your own bird of paradise, be patient, be patient, be patient, and then act fast.

This sunbird looks like it's thinking about whether or not it wants to sample the bird of paradise's nectar. Better make up its mind quick before the bloom is off the bird, so to speak.
(Photo from Outdoor Photo)

Hope this is helpful, Shalom. May your birds of paradise bloom abundantly and often.


Sources
The Flower Expert, Birds Of Paradise
SFGate, What is the Life Cycle of a Bird of Paradise?
Teleflora, Exotic Flower Spotlight: All about Birds of Paradise
Animalia Life, Greater double-collared sunbird
Outsidepride.com, Bird of Paradise Flower Seeds 

Apple #642: Wreath Flower

I go through phases when I keep playing one of those horribly addictive match-3 games.  Right now, the match-3 game in question is called Full Bloom.  The things you match are flower petals, and with the game-based coins that you win, you buy flowers to decorate your game-based garden. Inane, I know. But I must . . . bring order . . . by arranging everything in sets of 3, or 4, or 6.




One of the boards in the Full Bloom game.  This one is especially hard.


At first, the flowers you can buy with your game-based coins are typical things like tulips and pansies and daffodils.  As you advance, the flowers get more exotic. You can also win complex arrangements, some of which include animated animals such as a diving road runner or a gopher than pokes his head out.  Recently, I encountered a flower you can buy called the wreath plant.  Hopefully this screen shot gives you an idea of  what it looks like in the game.

I thought, that thing can't be real.  It must be some arrangement you can buy in a florist's shop, where they make for you a circle of evergreens and put a ring of pink flowers around it.

A few nights after I first saw this plant in the game, it showed up in one of my dreams.  (Yes, sooner or later everything shows up in my dreams.)  So I thought, that does it.  I have to find out if this thing really exists.

Answer: it does exist.  It is a real plant.  It really grows that way.  It's pretty incredible-looking. First I'll show you a bunch of pictures, because seeing a whole bunch of photos is what it took to convince me that this thing is for real.



The wreath flower.  Evergreen on the inside, flower on the outside.
(Photo by Ron Long, for the UBC Botanical Garden)

More wreath flower.   Here the flowers appear to be a mixture of yellow and pink, on the same plant.

(Photo from Jammy Chicken)

More of a top-down view.
(Photo from Wheat Belt Tourism) 


 
No matter how many of these pictures I see, it still looks like a made-up plant
(Photo from Faye & David's West Australian Trip 2011)

Close-up of the flowers that ring the greens in the middle.

(Photo by Sheila)

Some flowers open, some still just buds.  Mixture of yellow and pink.

(Photo from Edge of Nowhere)



With yellow flowers
(Photo from UK Wildflowers)

• The wreath flower is a wildflower that grows only in Western Australia, particularly in Mullewa several hours north of Perth.

The red dots on this map of Western Australia indicate where wreath flowers have been recorded.
(Map from Florabase)

• The Latin name for the plant is Lechenaultia macrantha.  Technically, that's misspelled.  The genus should be Leschenaultia because it's named after a naturalist whose name was Leschenault.  But at some point somebody left out the s, and now that's the accepted spelling.

• Other plants in the genus are shrubby, woody plants that also grow in Australia, and they may or may not have flowers.  So, strange as the arrangement of the wreath flower may be, it fits right in with its fellow Lechenaultias.

• The flowers can be red, deep pink, or yellow, often with white in the middle.  The branches in the middle are "twiggy" with narrow alternating leaves.

• Its favorite place to grow is on sandy or gravelly ground that has been "disturbed." One site says that means it grows where there have been bushfires.  Another site says you often see them growing "in profusion" along roadsides.

Tons of wreath flowers growing along a roadside.
(Photo from Faye & David's West Australian Trip 2011)



More wreath flowers growing pretty much in a line
(Photo from Jammy Chicken)

• They only bloom for a short window of time.  One site says from August to November.  Another site says September through mid-October.  Still another says they bloom in late winter and spring.  Someone else says, "If the rains come too late this plant does not flower."

• Lots of blogs describe people driving out to see the wreath flowers, asking people in Mullewa for directions, following signs that have been put up that point to the plants, etc.  Many visitors report being disappointed because after all that, the plants aren't blooming at that particular time.  So it seems to be something of a challenge to find them and catch them in the act.

• Many sites say this wildflower is very difficult to cultivate.  It likes sandy, well-drained, even dry soil especially in the summertime, and lots of sun.  If it's true that it prefers ground that's been through a fire, it might be hard to replicate that chemical composition in the soil in your house.

• By the way, I checked with The Plant List, which is supposed to be a database of all species names of vascular plants (flowering plants and trees, etc.) and bryophytes (mosses, etc.).  The database had entries for several Lechenaultias, but not the macrantha.  

• I e-mailed them about it, and they responded saying they don't have a lot of information, but they have added "screen images" for what they do have.  Which was heartening because it meant that even though it's not in their database, they acknowledge that the plant does exist.  The e-mail included some of those screen shots of various sources that describe the plant -- one is entirely in Latin.  I just checked and they haven't updated the database yet.  But hopefully they'll get a record for the macrantha added soon.

Here's one last photo of the wreath flower.  It really does exist.
(Photo from Gypsy Life)


Sources
Australian Native Plants Society, Lechenaultia macrantha
Florabase, Lechenaultia macrantha K. Krause
Gardening with Angus, Lechenaultia macrantha or Wreath Lechenaultia
UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research, Lechenaultia macrantha
UK Wildflowers, Wreath Leschenaultia
Jammy Chicken, Wreath Flowers, Western Australia
Virtual Tourist, Wildflower Country!!!
Photos
Dawne's Photo Journeys
Faye & David's West Australian Trip 2011
Gypsy Life
Sheila on PBase
Wheat Belt Tourism
Edge of Nowhere

Apple #636: Sessile Trillium

I'm going to be away from the internet on Sunday, so I thought I'd give you a little Daily Apple for your Memorial Day weekend.  Let me tell you about a plant I noticed for the first time recently.

It's called the Sessile Trillium.


Sessile Trillium. You can just make out, inside the arching petals, the stamen standing straight up.
(Photo by the Apple Lady. For some reason, when I uploaded my photos, the colors got over-bright. Not sure why that happened.)

• Some people know this flower as Toadshade, I think because its leaves are so large and mottled, it looks like a place where toads might take shelter.

• Other people might call it the Wake Robin.  It blooms in early spring, before the trees have leafed out, and when the robins begin to sing their spring songs.

• When I first saw this plant, I caught my breath.  Maybe because the flower is dark, or maybe because it grows low to the ground, it seemed like it was some kind of treasure growing secretly in the woods, and I happened to be lucky enough to notice it. 

• I also thought the flower hadn't fully blossomed yet and that's why the petals hadn't opened.  But according to my wildflowers book, that's how the petals stay.

• The petals stay closed around the stamen (sensitive reproductive part) in order to protect the pollen from rain.  How sweet is that?

• Actually, the flower does not have a sweet fragrance, but in fact may smell faintly of rotting meat. :(  This is to attract the bugs that pollinate it, which are beetles and ants and flies.

• The sessile trillium has 3 petals, maroon in color, and 3 leaves.  The word trillium refers to the number three.  The sessile part means attached directly to the base with no stalk.  I think that refers to the way the leaves and the flower grow together, both attached at the same place. 

• It likes woodlands where there's a mix of sun and shade.  It also likes the ground to be very rich and loamy, where dead leaves tend to pile up, or near wetlands.

• If you see one, look around carefully because you'll probably see another close by, and then another not far away.  They tend to spread out across an area.

• It grows in the Midwest and a few Eastern and Atlantic states.  In some of those locations, it's a threatened species. In others, it's endangered.

• Deer really like to munch on trillium, but sometimes they miss this species because the darker flower helps to camouflage it against the leaves. (Deer are color-blind.)

• Also, since they plants tend to like wetlands, and wetlands continue to be turned into other types of environments, the plants have fewer places to grow.

• Another thing that threatens these plants is the fact that they take a long time to grow.  The seeds take 2 years to germinate.  Once the plant has found its way up through the soil to the air, it takes another 2 to 3 years to mature and produce flowers.  Lots of things can happen in that 4- to 5-year span that ruin the plant's chances of reproducing.

• So the petals have adapted by protecting the plant's pollen as much as possible.

Here you can see how the petals are arched over the reproductive parts, and there is open space between the petals.  You can also get a better idea of how the leaves and the petals are all attached at the same place.
(Photo by the Apple Lady)

• If you see one of these, do not pick it.  It's worked to hard to get here, so let it keep doing its thing and hopefully it will be able to generate more of these secret treasures in the woods.  

• Instead of taking the flower with you, take a photo, and you'll be able to admire it at your leisure any time.

P.S. I can't recommend this book highly enough. The pages on the left hand side are full-color photos and the facing pages describe the plant.  Everything is organized by flower color, so it's really easy to use.


Robert L. Henn, Wildflowers of Ohio, Second Edition



Sources
Robert L. Henn, Wildflowers of Ohio, Second Edition
Illinois Wildflowers, Sessile Trillium
Ball State University Field Station and Environmental Education Center, Sessile Trillium
USDA Plants Profile, Trillium sessile L. toadshade

Apple #629: Orchids

This week I went to a botanical garden in my neighborhood, and they were having a display of orchids. I've never cared much about orchids one way or another, but seeing so many of them arranged so beautifully, I was awed.  That many orchids all in one place also made the greenhouses smell beautiful.

So I thought I'd share with you some photos I took of these lovely flowers.  I wish I could share their fragrance with you too.  I can't do that, but I will of course sprinkle in some facts along with the photos.

One variety of Phalaenopsis (moth orchid).  These are most often for sale in grocery and big box stores, and they're said to be one of the easiest orchids to grow.
(Photo by the Apple Lady)

• Orchids are among the oldest living plants in the world. 

• They are at least as old as the dinosaurs (Mesozoic era, or 251 million years ago), but recent research suggests they may be even older than that.

• Orchids are one of the largest and most diverse family of plants: Orchidaceae.  Some 925 genera are classified as belonging to the orchid family.  These 925 genera include 27,135 individual species. (Actually, they've identified 69,900 species names, but a lot of those are synonyms.) 

• They are native to nearly every climate on earth, except for very dry deserts and in Antarctica. 

• Because of the incredible array of plants that are classified as "orchids," generalizing about them is pretty difficult.

Cymbidium, maybe?
(Photo by the Apple Lady)

• Even sorting out the name of an orchid can be difficult.  Within specific species, orchid-lovers have created tons of hybrids. Each of those hybrids are given names, and if the hybrid has won an award, the acronym for the society that awarded the prize is tacked on.

• For example, you might see an orchid called Paph. Olivia "Lorelei," HCC/AOS.  That means it belongs to the genera Pahiopedilum (abbreviated Paph.), and it was a hybrid named after its mixer,  Olivia. Since the cross was first grown, some exceptional cultivars have been noted, and those were given the name "Lorelei," and they were awarded the Highly Commended Certificate (HCC) by the American Orchid Society (AOS).  Put it all together, and you get Paph. Olivia "Lorelei," HCC/AOS. Rolls right off the tongue.

• Since very few of the orchids that I saw had name plates nearby, I can't be sure of the names of most of the orchids in my photos.  I'll try to make a guess about the genera, but that's the best I can do.

• If you recognize any of these orchids and know their full names, please let me know in the comments.

Miltoniopsis, I think. My sources say this genera used to be much more popular than they are now.
(Photo by the Apple Lady)

• Orchids range in size from the smallest--Platyestele stenostachaya, which can fit on a dime, on the nose of President Roosevelt pictured there -- to the largest, Cattleya gigas, whose flowers can grow to be as large as 11 inches across.

• Vanilla plants are types of orchids. 

• The Aztecs first cultivated the seed pods of the vanilla plant for flavoring.  

• Vanilla remains the only type of orchid cultivated for a commercial crop.  It is the most labor-intensive crop in the world.

 
Another Miltoniopsis, I'm guessing. They look like they have faces like Chinese dragons. Or like how pansies seem to have faces.
(Photo by the Apple Lady)

• Orchids reproduce using a vast variety of methods that depend on their environment.  Speaking as generally as possible, though, their pollen is not like the easily-distributable dusty granules that other flowers have.  

• Many types of orchids have a little packet or pouch filled with pollen, and they depend on an insect or sometimes even mice or other animals to pick up the pouch and carry it with them.

• One Chinese orchid grows flowers that are particularly attractive to mice. When a mouse comes to nibble on the petals, it picks up the pollen pouch and takes it off to the next plant.

• Some orchids reek like rotting meat, which attracts maggots, and they carry away the pollen.

• Slipper orchids have a cup-like protrusion which invites insects in.  Little hairs discourage the insect from backing out the way it came in but instead going forward into the flower where it comes in contact with the pouch and then carries it off with them.

• Another type of orchid fires its ball of pollen at bees as they pass by.

• Those pollen packets pack a punch -- one pouch can contain as many as 3 million very tiny seeds.

 

This is one of the more bizarre kinds of orchids that I saw.  The plant is that froth of greenish-white skinny leaves at the left, and its blossom is sprouting on that great long stem, though the flower has not yet bloomed.  It's sort of glued to that cable that's running vertically at the left, and it looks like it's pretty much subsisting on the air. These are Tillandsias.
(Photo by the Apple Lady)

• Even after they go through all that effort to pollinate, often their seeds don't germinate.  This is because most need their tiny seeds to interact with very specific types of fungus in order for the seed to sprout.  It's not often that that combination happens just right.

• Perhaps because pollination and germination are such a tricky businesses, orchids have also developed the ability for survive for many years without reproducing. 

• Many orchids won't even flower for the first 5 to 7 years after germination.

• I think it's safe to say that orchids know how to be patient.  They've been on this planet long enough, they seem to be pretty good at it.

More Cymbidium, I think.
(Photo by the Apple Lady)

• Botanist William Cattley received a package from Rio de Janeiro, and in it were orchids used as packing material.  Cattley kept one and nurtured it and when it eventually bloomed, he named it the Cattleya.  That was in 1818.

• (By the way, Cattleya is pronounced CAT-lee-ah. Or, depending on your nationality, cat-LEE-ah.)

• Within a few decades, orchid mania had swept through Europe.  People were going off to the tropics and scooping up orchids left and right for their growing pleasure back home.  As a result, several species were very quickly endangered and nearly wiped out.  

• Over half of the orchids shipped to Europe died in transit.

• Prices skyrocketed, and orchid-growing became known as the pursuit of the very wealthy.  As orchids became harder to find, prices only went higher, which only stoked the fires of those passionate, well-to-do orchid-growers.

• It took World War I to put the brakes on the practice of rampant orchid-hunting.  Although many orchids had been taken from their native habitats, and even though the War destroyed many greenhouses that held rare orchids, many hybrids did manage to survive.  And some of the species that had been picked to near extinction in the tropics began to thrive again.

This looks like a Phalaenopsis, but I remember what this one was called: the Banana Panda orchid.  I laughed out loud when I saw the sign.  It's a type of Dendrobium.
(Photo by the Apple Lady)

• Nero Wolfe, a detective in Rex Stout novels, was very much into the orchid-growing.  So was the bad guy in that movie with Mr. Tibbs. In the Heat of the Night.

• The word orchid comes from a Greek word meaning testicle.  This isn't because of anything to do with the flowers, but rather because the bulbs at the end of the roots of one particular orchid looked a lot like a pair of dangling testicles.

Another type of Dendrobium, I think. Apparently Dendrobia and Phalaenopsis are often confused.
(Photo by the Apple Lady)

• Today, orchids are among the most popular houseplant, more popular even than African violets, poinsettias, and chrysanthemums.

• For a long time, Cattleya orchids were known as the corsage flower.  This was because growers in the 1920s developed a method for raising large numbers of this particular genera, so they were widely available.

• Funny thing, though.  I don't think there was a single Cattleya in the exhibit I attended.  Though I could very easily be wrong about that. 

• I'm going to stop talking for a while now and let you just look at a few pictures.

A white Phalaenopsis (moth orchid).
(Photo by the Apple Lady)



 
I like how the petals of these (Cymbidium?) are translucent.
(Photo by the Apple Lady)



All the variations in color and size and display were endlessly fascinating.
(Photo by the Apple Lady)

This was another unusual one.  I'm almost positive the nameplate for this one said Hawaiian Holly. It might be one of a group called Intergenerics.  These are orchids that have been crossed and re-crossed so many times, unusual flower shapes result.
(Photo by the Apple Lady)



Another Phalaenopsis. I think.

(Photo by the Apple Lady)

• New orchid species are still being discovered, some 200 to 300 species per year.  This doesn't mean new hybrids, but species growing in the wild.

• It is believed that there are still an estimated 5,000 species that have not yet been identified.

• There is an orchid called the Black Orchid, but the flower isn't actually black.  It's more of a greenish-brown.  It's also known as the Wild Banana Orchid (Cymbidium caniculatum).

• There is no naturally-occurring black or blue orchid -- as far as we know. Maybe in another few years, someone will discover one.

I think this is a Phalaenopsis, too.  I thought those striations were really cool.  Wonderful plants, aren't they?
(Photo by the Apple Lady)


Related entry: Vanilla beans

Sources
The Plant List, Orchidaceae
The North of England Orchid Society, Orchids for Beginners
American Orchid Society, Basics of Orchid Names, Colombian-Type Miltonia (Miltoniopsis) Culture
Orchid Geeks, Orchid Photo Identification Guide
Oregon Orchid Society, Orchid History and Orchid Pollination
White River Gardens, Just the Facts about Orchids
Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden, Interesting Orchid Facts
BBC Nature, Orchidaceae
Kew Gardens, Orchid Discovery
Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Miscellaneous Orchid Info and Fun Facts
Orchid-Flower-Care, Orchid Identification
rePotme.com, Orchid Identification

Apple #580: Trillium

I have always liked the trillium flowers. They grow wild near where I grew up, and my dad is always so delighted when they appear in the spring. In recent years, any time I've come across them in the woods, I've taken a picture or two. I never knew anyone else was as fond of them until the past few days, when I ran across two people talking about them. So it's time I did an Apple on trillium.

White trillium. Note the three petals and the three leaves. 

 (Photo by the Apple Lady)

• The first question is, what is the plural of trillium? 

• It's a Latin word and the way the Latin works, the plural would be trillia. However, the word has been adapted to English usage, and the way English works, plurals are made (generally speaking) by adding an -s. Therefore, the plural of trillium is trilliums. 

• Some people do use the word trillium as either singular or plural. Trilliums sounds weird to me, so I'm going with trillium all the way. 

The petals and leaves in threes are more obvious here.

(Photo by the Apple Lady)

• Trillium are members of the lily family.  I've never thought lilies smelled very good, and trillium are no different. They're pretty stinky. The stink is off-putting to us, but insects love the smell. To them, it smells like something rotting and therefore something good to eat. So they show up, looking for food, and wind up collecting all sorts of pollen. Clever stinky trillium.

• They are so stinky that in fact, one common name for trillium is Stinking Benjamin.

• You might think that name comes from a reference to some guy named Ben who was especially ripe, but the origin is not so colorful.  The name is actually a mis-pronunciation of another word benzoin, which is itself a corruption of another word, benjoin, which was an essence derived from plants in Sumatra to make perfume.

• The essence of our fair trillium is pretty stinky, so it was distinguished from its sweeter-smelling benjoin providers with the moniker Stinking.

• Yet another name for trillium is birthroot. People usually use this name to refer to the red varieties of trillium.

 

Red trillium, sometimes called birthroot, sometimes also called Stinking Benjamin.

(Photo from the Adirondack Almanack)

• Birthroot was used in native medicine at the time of birth to stop excessive bleeding. It was also used for other women's health purposes, such as soothing tender nipples and other menstrual discomforts, and treating bleeding related to uterine fibroids.  Native healers also applied it topically to treat headaches, sunburn, and acne.

• Yet another common name for trillium is the wake-robin.  Europeans thought the trillium was the same as a plant back home by that name. They were mistaken, but the name here has stuck. The name indicates that the flowers are sighted around the same time that the first robins of spring appear. 

 A pink trillium -- or would you say purple?

(Photo by the Apple Lady)

• They like to grow in the shade, which means they thrive in wooded areas. People say that they grow in the East or Midwest, but according to the USDA, some variety of trillium grows in every state of the country except Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. 

• Their roots are actually underground rhizomes, so they can spread to form a dense mat.  Pale yellow ones used to grow all across one part of our lawn in the spring time. Then the gas company came and tore up the yard to put in a gas line, and after that the trillium didn't come up anymore. That's why I'm always so happy to see them. 

• I had always thought they only grew wild, but you can purchase trillium plants from some nurseries. All of my photos of trillium were taken in April. So it seems that, where I live, that's where they bloom. Even this year, when it seems that everything bloomed early.  

Here's a white variety with wavy petals. 
I took this photo toward the end of April, 
when the flowers were starting to turn brown and wilt.

(Photo by the Apple Lady)

• After the flowers fade, red or purple seed-berries form.  The seeds get distributed by ants.

Seed-berry of a red trillium.

(Photo by Ron P. Metcalfe at PBase)

• By the way, it's best not to pick the trillium. They bruise easily so the flower won't look very pretty after you've picked it, and the plant will also be damaged and won't fare so well after the picking.

Sources

John Switzer, Trillium's beauty belies its odor, Columbus Dispatch, April 29, 2012

Choosing Voluntary Simplicity, Red Trillium

The Adirondack Almanack, Stinking Benjamin: A Trillium That By Any Other Name Would Still Smell As Sweet, April 17, 2010

herbs2000.com, Trillium 

fine Gardening, How to Grow Trilliums

Michael Iannotti, Trilliums - Fascinating Flowers for a Woodland Garden, About.com

USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Plants Profile, Trillium

Macphail Woods Ecological Forestry Project, The Trilliums

Apple #575: Magnolias

The magnolia trees in my neighborhood are blooming. I know they're early bloomers each year, sometimes so early the snow is falling on the blossoms. But since we've been having summer-like weather in early March, I wondered if the magnolias are blooming any earlier than usual.



Magnolias in bloom
(Photo by the Apple Lady)

• Well, of course the answer to that depends on what kind of magnolia you're talking about.

• There are about 80 different species of magnolia, many of which have several cultivars (varieties) within each species. The Southern Magnolia, for example, has over 100 different kinds of cultivars.
  

• Not even discussing the variations among cultivars, there is all sorts of variation among the species. Those variations can affect a lot of things, including when the flowers bloom.

• Some species are deciduous (the Saucer Magnolia is one of these), some are semi-evergreen (the Jane Magnolia, for example), and some are evergreen year-round (Southern, or Magnolia grandiflora).

The Jane Magnolia is semi-evergreen, and it has tulip-shaped flowers which are pinkish-purple on the outside and bright white at the center.
(Photo from Fast-Growing-Trees.com. You can order a 3-4 ft. Jane magnolia from here for $69.)



The Southern Magnolia can grow to be 60 to 90 feet tall. Its flowers are entirely white.
(Photo from Missouri Botanical Garden)

• The Sweetbay Magnolia is a favorite among gardeners in South Carolina. But the same species may be deciduous, semi-evergreen, or evegreen depending on where in South Carolina it is grown.

Sweetbay Magnolia flowers are a creamy white and the petals tend to do this rounded, scoop-like thing. They also have a light, lemony fragrance.
(Photo by Rodger Hamner, from University of Florida IFAS Extension)

• I'm going to guess that the magnolias in my neighborhood are Saucer Magnolias. Here's why:

• Saucer Magnolias are deciduous (check).

• They can grow to about 20 to 30 feet high (check. It was difficult to get close-ups of the blossoms because nearly all of them hung at heights taller than I am.).

• The flowers are large and saucer-shaped (check).

• The petals are white with pink, purple, or lilac on the outside (well, check, I think.).

• One site has a drawing of a Saucer Magnolia tree and its flower, and the drawing shows a flower whose petals on the interior are nearly all white with a blush of pink, while the exterior of the petal is pinkish-purple (definitely check).

Close-up of what I think is a Saucer Magnolia. Looking down on the blossom from above, you can just barely make out a tinge of pink in the otherwise white petals. So you might be tempted to say these flowers are white.
(Photo by the Apple Lady)



But what fascinates me is that from underneath, these very same flowers appear to be mostly pink. The pink color seems to be confined to the outside, undersides of the petals. It's funny that more of the pink doesn't appear in the flowers when looking down on them from above.
(Photo by the Apple Lady)

• So, assuming that these are Saucer Magnolias, when do Saucer Magnolias bloom? Once again, the answer depends. This time, it seems to depend on where the tree is growing:

• In New York's Central Park, they bloom "as early as late March."

• In South Carolina, they bloom in March or April.

• In Houston, they bloom in late February or early March.

• Along the coast, they may open as early as February.

• One site generalizes it best: as early as late winter, or as late as mid-spring.

• So I'm heartened to learn that while the weather may be wackily out of season, the magnolias, at least, seem to be right on schedule.

Whenever the Magnolias bloom, they sure are a welcome sight after winter.
(Photo by the Apple Lady)


Magnolias in General

• Despite all the variations among magnolia species, there are some things you can say about the lot of them.

• Magnolias are relatively easy to care for. Most species are not bothered by bugs or other pests.

• That said, most magnolias are pollinated--not by bees--by beetles. The beetles don't bug the trees, they're just there to help out.

• Magnolias generally don't like to be transplanted once they've got a root system going.
  

• This is because, while a magnolia's roots don't run deep, they are long and ropey, so it's hard to make sure you've got them all bundled together when you're moving the tree.
  

• If you really must move a magnolia, dig as wide a rootbed as possible. It's more important to make it large in circumference than it is to dig deep, since most of the roots live close to the surface. Also, if you can, snip a few roots a year before you're going to move the tree. This will encourage the roots to branch, making it more likely to withstand being moved the following year.
  

• For the same reason, it's a good idea not to plant other flowers or shrubs around the base of the magnolia. Those other plants will interfere with your magnolia's roots.

• Most people call Magnolias trees, but apparently it is more accurate to say they are shrubs.

• The primary difference between a tree and a shrub is that trees usually have one or maybe two main trunks, while shrubs have lots of stems. Shrubs are also usually shorter than trees, but what constitutes "shorter" versus "taller" seems to vary from one shrub/tree to another.
  

This magnolia plainly has lots of main stems, so even though it is fairly tall, it should probably be called a shrub.
(Photo by the Apple Lady)

• That said, while "shrub" may be technically correct, in person, I'd probably call a 90-foot Southern Magnolia a "tree." I think in that case, its height would trump its multi-stemmed-ness.

• In the history of plants, magnolias are thought to be among the earliest, or most primitive, of all flowering plants. Some of the oldest fossils of flowers look very similar to magnolia blossoms.

Did the earliest flowers look something like this?
(Photo by the Apple Lady)


Sources
United States National Arboretum, Magnolia Questions and Answers
Southern Living, Magnolia: Essential Southern Plant
John Eustice, University of Minnesota Extension, Magnolias for Minnesota
Debbie Shaughnessy, Clemson Cooperative Extension, Magnolia
Backyard Nature, Magnolia Blossoms
Urban Forest Ecosystems Institute, Saucer Magnolia
Arbor Day Foundation, Magnolia, Saucer, Magnolia x soulangeana
Central Park Conservancy, Saucer Magnolia
Steve Nix, About.com, Forestry, How to Manage and Identify Saucer Magnolia
Greg Shelley, Saucer Magnolia churns out the blooms in early March, Houston Examiner.com, March 3, 2010