Description
A unique Japanese species in which petals are missing (hence the name “a” = none, “petalon” = petals). Stranger still is the fact that the sepals (which are green and leafy in most other Trillium), have become purple and petal-like. The result looks like a purple Trillium without sepals, when the reverse is actually true!
The flowers can be green, green and red or, most usually, blood-red to purple. The effect is both attractive and unusual, though this is not a big flamboyant species.
Easily grown in typical Trillium conditions of half-shade and a soil rich in humus. Fully hardy here. It remains little known in Europe.
Our stock is true Trillium apetalon. The name of the very rare smallii is frequently used interchangeably in literature and 99% of the pictures which you will find by googling “Trillium smallii” are in fact Trillium apetalon. The two are frequently confused both in the UK and in Japan, in nursery lists and in literature. The two species are in fact very different. They can be told apart based on the very different appearance of their flowers, leaves, sepals and pistils, anther:filament ratio and even their chromosomes are different!
