I used to have big drifts of trilliums and I don't know why I don't anymore except that the neighbors cut down a lot of trees. I do have several small patches of the red trillium, also known as "Stinking Benjamin". I guess they smell rather awful. I don't really care to find out. :-)
I'm hoping that it's just a little early up here for trilliums. I only saw one tiny one in the woods yesterday, just a bud. Like you, I can remember when there were hundreds of them back there. But, you shook me up a bit when you said that your neighbors cut trees, because my neighbors logged back there, about 15 or 20 years ago.
ReplyDeleteThat whole section of my woodland changed after the neighbors cut trees down. I started calling it the dead zone. There used to be tons of trilliums, squirrel corn and dutchman's breeches, trout lilies. Now there are no wildflowers to speak of. There is a big patch of solomon's seal but the damn woodchucks have gotten to that two years in a row...
ReplyDeleteI swoon
ReplyDeleteThe Makah peoples said if you picked Trillium ( trillium oviatum , here) it would make it rain
they live in and around a rain forest, so it sounds like a pretty good bet.
Trillium was one of the first wildflowers I learned since mom was so in love with them. She would point them out.
I need to find and scan some older pictures. I had at least three different kinds of trilliums in this woodland section.
ReplyDeleteYou can't pick them here, Marti, they are protected in NYS. Or were when I was younger. (I used to anyway--I would pick them when riding in the woods. I remember tying a bunch to the latigo on my saddle to get them home.)