Trillium germination

It's interesting that at such an early age you can already see the initial development of the thickened rhizome that we commonly call a trillium bulb.

Maybe this helps Rick

This is the information from Jelitto

Roland

Cold-germinaters are still referred to as frost-germinaters, although this isn't quite correct. The sowing must be kept warm (about +18 to 22°C) [about 64 to 72°F] and moist for the first 2-4 weeks. After this period the sowing must be kept at a cold temperature (between -4 and +4°C) [between 25 and 39°F] for another 4-6 weeks. Colder temperatures of -5°C [23°F] are only advantageous for most species of the Ranunculus family. It is not so important if the temperature is higher or lower during the cooling period, but the cooling period has to be prolonged because the synthesis of the germination inducer, hormonlike acid, slows down or comes to a standstill. It is beneficial to cover the sowing with snow during the cooling-period. The temperature below it usually keeps in the optimum range of -4 to 0°C [25 to 32°F]. The sowing is kept moist, and the melting snow helps to destroy the shell, which is advantageous for the germinating seedling. After this cooling-period the sowing may not be immediately exposed to high temperatures. The most effective temperatures are between +5 to 12°C [41 to 54°F], even if germination has started. The best location for this sowing, even in March, April and May, is the open field, the cold frame or a cold greenhouse.

Thanks, Roland.  There is some good information there.

I guess this is what I am really asking:

With hypogeal germinating Lilium spp., there is often a difference in the size of the initial bulb, depending on how long the seedling is kept at the first warm stage.  Four months instead of three months, for instance, can produce larger bulbs.

Similarly, does the thickened rhizome of a trillium seedling get significantly larger with a longer initial warm period before the seedling sends up its first leaf?

RickR wrote:

Jan, your 2011 collected Trillium kurabayashii seed have germinated!  :o

You were so generous that I decided to plant some, and then kept some in the moist packed bag you sent.  (Don't we all like to watch the actual germination process if we can?)  Both are sitting on the kitchen counter.  I guess I just never got around to putting them in the fridge.... Now every one in the bag is sending out a radicle!  And hopefully, the planted seeds are, too.

From what I read, most trilliums don't germinate until after a cold treatment, and then naturally go through the next season underground, and send up a leaf in the second growing season.

Now my question for you, Dave, Wim, or anyone else who might know:
how long should the seed establish its root before the next cold treatment?

If I try the "standard" 3 months warm (for root growth) and 3 months cold (in the fridge), that will take me to June 5th.  Can I shorten it any?  This scenario is from the start of actual germination rather than from planting, so I would think I could take at least a week off the warm period(?).

What do you all think?

Hello Rick

I know this is very unscientific but a good friend gave me a bit of advice years ago about Trillium seed sowing in NZ and that was 'you plant em, he knows when to germinate' so i just sow T.seed outside in a shade frame as soon as i receive it regardless of the time of the year .

Interestingly i also received some of Jan's T.kurabayashii seed last month,( sown straight away)--a check in the pot today and guess what ,my seed has also germinated like yours with radicles ........

Cheers Dave.

RickR wrote:

Similarly, does the thickened rhizome of a trillium seedling get significantly larger with a longer initial warm period before the seedling sends up its first leaf?

I don't know Rick

Maybe I am lazy
but I let seeds go as they go
I just have a look when it is time to re-pot
sometimes after a few months
sometimes after three years
most after two years

I am not in a hurry

what I find is that fresh seeds from slow germinating seeds partly germinates
and the year after mostly the rest

Roland

Well, I have the seeds planted in four different pots, so maybe a little experimentation is called for.  Hopefully, I will know next season if the first leaves are significantly different in size.

Well, the damn computer ate my first reply so let’s try again with a backup in Word.

I’m pleased to know my seed is germinating world wide-New Zealand, Belgium (personal correspondent) and the Midwest.  It’s nice to send out a batch of “happy camper” seed because the seed I sent to Belgium a year ago didn’t germinate (more on that later).

Trillium kurabayashii usually sends up a leaf the first spring and it’s a big fat leaf.  I’m not sure a longer warm period would result in a bigger rhizome since I would think the ability to photosynthesize would be more important in building the rhizome size.  But hey, this is just my guess so please experiment and report back to us.

John Gyer, a frequent Trillium-L poster and occasional NARGS author, wrote a Quarterly article some time ago advocating sowing immature trillium seed to bypass the stubborn dormancy problems trillium seed often exhibits. I know John has done most of his work with eastern Trillium since he lives on the East Coast.  I’ve found that sowing immature T. kurabayashii seed usually results in an empty pot with rotted seed.  I think this is what happened with the first batch of seed I sent to Belgium.  The seed seems to need to be very ripe ie the pods really mushy and starting to split open.  You’ll know the seed if ripe enough if the arils rot down quickly when you put the whole mess in a plastic bag.  Of course if you’re not mailing the seed somewhere you can just sow it arils and all.  That’s what I did with my original seed (got the fat, mushy seed pods at a chapter picnic) and I got great germination the following spring.

The last two years I’ve had a lousy harvest of T. kurabayashii seed due to our lousy spring/summer.  Hoping for something better next year or Southern California might start looking attractive to this webfooted Oregonian.

Jan

I don't know about the fate of my  share - haven't dared to dig in my pots ;)

Oh hey!!! How can I get in on this Trillium seed sharing party??? I should have lots of  T. erectum luteum next year to share.  ;D

Jan had posted her generous offer in October.  But alas, we have exhausted her supply. 
Check next year, she says:

http://nargs.org/smf/index.php?topic=795.0

There are also selections in the NARGS seed ex. :)

Has anyone had any luck getting good seed on Trillium luteum? I have grown this for years and never had seed and assumed that more than one clone is necessary. T. kurabayashii (and also chloropetalum) do seem to produce seed on single plants, and I have also found that the former germinates very well and quickly from freshly collected seed. I have always removed the elaiosome either with a sharp knife (slow and finicky) or by soaking with dilute hydrogen peroxide as described in the Case's book. This works very well. These plants attract the attention of visitors more than any others when we have our garden open in the spring, so it's good to know that more nurserymen are raising them from seed and are prepared to grow them on in pots for sale despite the time factor.

After four years of flowering with no seed production, my one T. luteum produced very plump seed capsules in 2010.  Being my first experience with any trillium I cared to collect seed from, I waited for maturity with anticipation.  Alas, as is probably the first experience with every novice trillium seed collector, "disaster" hit.  Through a small hole in the side of the capsule, every single seed was remove, presumably by ants.  :'(

2011 was a terrible year for pollination of many plants in my area, even my own crosses.  There was no seed production on T. luteum.

Regarding pollination, I do have a Trillium sessile growing 6ft away, but would such a hybrid produce such an abundance of seed?

RickR wrote:

Jan had posted her generous offer in October.  But alas, we have exhausted her supply. 
Check next year, she says:

http://nargs.org/smf/index.php?topic=795.0

There are also selections in the NARGS seed ex. :)

Dang!!! Well I'll have to keep my eyes open next year! And I did order a bunch from the seed-ex..so here's hoping I get my first choices! :rolleyes:

I have been growing Trillium kurabayashii from seed for many years.  I harvest the seed as soon as the pods lose their firm feeling, if left until soft the wasps and ants take them.
I usually sow straight away, early July this year and having checked the pots today I found they had all germinated.  The pots are left uncovered and open to the weather.
My original seed came from Phil & Gwen Phillips & produced extremely dark plants with wonderful leaf markings.  Last years seedlings flowered & produced dark, deep red, dark & light pink & even white seedlings.  Are these colour forms found in the wild?

Mike

WOW WHAT A NICE DARK COLOUR

Roland

Quite spectacular, Madgardener!  Now I am really excited. ;D

And somehow I had the idea that this species was an obscure one.
Certainly not, and rightly so!

So nice of you to make your debut on this forum with such beauty.
--- Welcome!

Madgardener wrote:

Last years seedlings flowered & produced dark, deep red, dark & light pink & even white seedlings.  Are these colour forms found in the wild?

Mike, those are healthy-looking, beautiful plants! I would love to see your white seedlings!

Wow indeed Madgardener (Mike), the near-black flowers on some of your Trillium kurabayashii are truly outstanding, I have never seen such dark flowers on a Trillium (great foliage too).  Welcome to the forum, you've made quite a splash starting out with such delectable Trillium color forms.

Hello Mike,

Typical flower color of Trillium kurabayashii is a very dark-purple red (burgundy) Trillium kurabayashii forma kurabayashii.  Sometimes, flower color is so deep as to appear black and yours would definitely be considered black (absolutely gorgeous!). There is also Trillium kurabayashii forma luteum which is yellow.

If you have T. kurabayashii which are white, pink or other colors they are more likely to be Trillium chloropetalum or a hybrid.

Julie

Thanks for the wonderful comments.
A few close up shots of the flowers.
All the colour forms have the very dark plant as the seed parent.

Mike

What's happening in your garden

never seen this before
Lovely colours
By the time you have seeds from the pink ones
I am interested to swap

Roland

How easy do trilliums hybridize?

Mike, might your dark T. kurabayashii be crossing with a lighter flowering species,  resulting in an array of light colors?

Rick
I grow Trillium albidum, ovatum & rivale.  The seed of the plants in the photos was sown 6 - 7 years ago & at that time the only others I had at flowering size were rivale & ovatum.
I have friends who live about one mile away, ( Phil & Gwen Phillips)which is where my first seed came from and they also have had pink forms appear from seed from their own very dark form. Kurabayashii is the only trillium they grow.  Live material from the original seed parent has been seen by Carl Denton, (Phil & Gwen Phillips took material to him) & he confirmed the plant as T. kurabayashii.
Hope this is helpful.

Mike

Thanks so much for the clarification, and putting that possibility to rest.

-- Very cool. 8)

An extraordinary trillium, that's for sure! Wouldn't mind growing any of those colour forms in my garden!
Regarding the different colours, it is probably at least 2 genes controlling the amount of colour. Then you can have several colours in between the whitest and the darkest type.

A few years ago I dabbed kurabayashii pollen on albidum (only have one plant of that so I wasn't getting seed anyway)  and got good seed set and germination.  I'm still waiting for these guys to get big enough to bloom and see what I get.  I'm hoping for some nice pinks.  My suspicion is that kurabayashii, albidum and chloropetalum are all interfertile.  Who knows maybe they're really just one species-lumpers vs splitters anyone? Maybe those lovely pinks of Madgardener have some albidum lurking in their background.  Or maybe just a white form of kurabyashii.  Whatever they're quite exquisite. 

Amy, I'd be happy to send you seed of kurabayashii this summer assuming I get some.  Last year I had lousy seed set due to our wet spring but I still got enough to share. 

Now if anyone has ripe nivale seed this summer........

Jan 

Jan wrote:

 

Amy, I'd be happy to send you seed of kurabayashii this summer assuming I get some.  Last year I had lousy seed set due to our wet spring but I still got enough to share. 

Now if anyone has ripe nivale seed this summer........

Jan 

Jan I would LOVE some of your seed!  ;D :D ;D I'll send you my address in a PM.

Mike,

your Trilliums are wonderful! What a variety...love the intense pink one and of course the dark one (you're getting close to a black Trillium ;))!

I will collect as much seed as possible from the Trillium kurabayashii later this year. 

I will post here when it is available.

Mike

Madgardener wrote:

I will collect as much seed as possible from the Trillium kurabayashii later this year. 

I will post here when it is available.

Mike

You need arranging a queue!

Very nice Trilliums, Mike! Very cool to see variable populations..

Hoy wrote:

Madgardener wrote:

I will collect as much seed as possible from the Trillium kurabayashii later this year. 

I will post here when it is available.

Mike

You need arranging a queue!

Yes, definitley! Count me in! I just sowed 2 pots of T. kurabayashii from the NARGS exchange. One wild collected and the other garden. what fun!!!! :D

I am not knowledgeable on growing trillium's but in 2010 I received seed of T grandiflorum moist packed from Kristel and this is now germinating.

On a trip to N. California last July I collected some green pods of T. ovatum on the of chance it would grow. I popped the pods and sowed the soft seeds as soon as we got home.This is now  germinating like cress.

At the same time we collected a couple of green berries of Clintonia andrewsiana and these seeds are also up.

Tony, that makes sense! Unripe seeds have not entered their dormancy so they should germinate easy - if they're not too unripe ;)

Jan, now the Trilliums have started germination :D :D

Hi everyone,

My name is Marianne and I live in Sweden, please excuse my poor english.  :-\

I have been reading here for some time now and I think this is a wonderful forum and I love all the beautiful images.
And I have learned quite a bit here as well, so great. :D

I'm new when it comes to Trilliums and I have only a few in my garden and they are planted either last year or this year, some of them bloomed this year. I think there is a seed pod going on in my T. chloropetalum and I would love to try to sow these. My question is how deep do you sow them in the soil? All advice would be welcome.

Hello Marianne

Welcome here
You are right it is a good forum
with a lot of people with knowledge
I am in France and seed Trilliums as soon as the seeds are ripe
The seeds are barely covered with soil
and germinate here the year after in spring

Roland

Hello Roland

Thank you for the answer. The seeds will barely be covered with soil....I will definitely be keeping that in mind.
I'm so excited about this and I just love Trilliums.

How do you put in a picture in the forum?

Marianne

Click on reply
go to Additional Options...
click in the field right from Attach:
then you go to where your pictures are

I make my pictures 800x600 pixels with Tiny Pic (www.efpage.de  choose English version)

Roland

Ahh I see, thanks Roland
Here are some of my Trilliums.

YES!! It worked :D :D :D
And I totally forgot the names.They are:
T. erectum
T. chloropetalum
T. "Gothenburg pink strain"
T. sulcatum

Thanks again Roland

Marianne

Hello Marianne, welcome to the forum; some lovely Trillium there.  I wasn't familiar with the one named "Gothenburg pink strain", but when I googled it, see that it's a pink form of T. grandiflorum, a treasure.

Nice pictures Marianne
Good start here
I am impressed

Roland

Hi Mark, thanks for the welcome, and thanks again Roland, sweet of you.
Yes, it's a T. grandiflorum, I forgot to write that when I posted the pictures and yes it's a real treasure.
I will come back tomorrow and tell you more about it, you see, it's bedtime here in Sweden.

Good night everyone
Marianne

Hello Marianne!

You have some nice Trilliums ;)

Where do you get them from, do you have a source in Sweden?

Hello everyone

This is the story of the beautiful T. grandiflorum "Gothenburg pink strain". I have translated what the man himself (Henrik Zetterlund) who "made" this beaty with his co workers have written about it on his blog. http://henrikzetterlund.wordpress.com/
Henrik works at the Botanical Garden of Gothenburg, a beautiful garden to visit.

In the 1950:is the garden received a pink form from Edinburgh, which only could be multiply by divisions, since the seeds gave both pink and white forms. 1995 the garden received 2 pink forms from Fred and Boots Case from Saginaw, Michigan.
The garden started to hand-pollinate the pink forms and in the year 2000 all the seedlings came out true pink and still does.
The forms that was from Fred and Boots was found at the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia.

My plant was given to me by a friend as a gift, I'm a very lucky person who have such a wonderful friend.

Marianne

Hallo Trond

I have bought mostly  of my Trilliums from plantmarkets here in Sweden, and some from the Botanical garden of Gothenburg. Not very many nurserys have Trilliums, and if they do, it's mostly T. albidum and T. luteum.
Trilliums like T. chloropetalum and T. kurabayashii is hard to find here in Sweden, and it's even harder to find these 2 with colors like pink, white and yellow flowers.

Is it hard to find Trilliums in Norway?

Marianne

It is very unusual to find trilliums for sale in nurseries here. However some small ones sell on internet. I don't have many plants and most are bought from abroad. The last year I've started sowing to get more than one plant of each species to plant out in my woodland.

'No room at mill '' .....A recent view of the shade house where I sow some of my Trillium seed.About 230 pots ,an estimation of over 9000 various seeds/seedlings .Of course not all will reach flowering .

I refuse to show a picture of about 180 large pots of near/mature plants raised from seed that need to be planted out.....

Cheers Dave.

Except for the 50 odd pots I've just sown, most pots have germination currently appearing under ground as shown in this pic of seed sown March 2014 from T.chloro/albidum white that are throwing doubles .Only another another 5 years to see if they come true .....

Could anyone offer advice on how best to handle seed of the following species (dry seed from the exchanges this year): Trillium albidum, Trillium chloropetalum, and Pseudotrillium rivale.

My usual routine would be to soak the seed before planting it. What to do with the seed flats is the main question. Should the pots be kept at room temp for a while before cold stratification? How much cold should the seed pots experience? There is still plenty of snow on the ground here,although daytime high temperatures are trending upward (0 C to 10 C by day, and -8 c to -1 c overnight). I could place the pots outside, or in our cool basement for steady cool temperatures, or in an unheated polytunnel greenhouse (might get too warm during the day).

Any advice would be welcome.

[quote=Tingley]

Could anyone offer advice on how best to handle seed of the following species (dry seed from the exchanges this year): Trillium albidum, Trillium chloropetalum, and Pseudotrillium rivale.

My usual routine would be to soak the seed before planting it. What to do with the seed flats is the main question. Should the pots be kept at room temp for a while before cold stratification? How much cold should the seed pots experience? There is still plenty of snow on the ground here,although daytime high temperatures are trending upward (0 C to 10 C by day, and -8 c to -1 c overnight). I could place the pots outside, or in our cool basement for steady cool temperatures, or in an unheated polytunnel greenhouse (might get too warm during the day).

Any advice would be welcome.

[/quote]

Hello Gordon

I've successfully sown a few  Trillium seeds over the years however our respective climates are like 'chalk and cheese' so I'm not sure any advice I can give you regarding temperatures we experience here would be relevant....

Heres a link to an article by Bill Cullina http://www.mtcubacenter.org/images/symposium-files/Cullina-William.pdf .It is based on his experiences in New England.

Cheers Dave.

Dave,

Thanks for the reply and link. I ought to have replied earlier but we are about to renovate the house in a major way (have to move out for several months while the work is going on). I decided to give the seed a soak, and plant it in pots to be sunk in the garden over summer, nature ought to be able to help keep things going. Trillium chloropetalum seed from the 2013-14 exchange has appeared above ground for the first time, so I'll just have to curb my impatience!

Cheers,

Gord

No worries Gordon.Best of luck with the seed and house reno .....

It's interesting how early T.rivale shows above pot surface level when grown in a shade house.Here's a pic taken this morning of seed sown x NZTG Aug 2014 .......In my experience seedlings like these will continue to grow through what we call a winter here in the southern hemisphere.

There is also some activity ? in another T.seed pot......

A better pic of germinated Trillium kurabayashii seed, showing the hypocotyl, bulblike rhizome and root.