Description
The typical species, T. chloropetalum, has lightly marbled leaves below deep, lustrous purple-brown, red, pink and bicoloured flowers. There are also very rare yellow forms known. The taxon is a variable one which is still in rapid evolution in its native California. In addition generations of gardeners and botanists have misused and misapplied the name chloropetalum and the internet abounds with misnamed plants and pictures also.
Deeply coloured forms seem to be the most frequently encountered ones in cultivation, however the species is a variable one with some amazing colour forms known in wild populations. The stock offered was raised here from seed collected from populations found in the Santa Cruz mountains of San Mateo County in California close to the junction of La Honda Road and Skyline Boulevard at 1,460 ft. The species in this locality is particularly variable (as is the case with some populations in the adjacent Sonoma County just to the north). This has prompted speculation that Trillium albidum and T. chloropetalum may have introgressed in these areas in the past. (it might also be noted that Trillium ovatum grows here at higher elevations). Whatever their origins (and the suggestion just made is purely speculative) the populations here are both variable and stunningly gorgeous in their colourations, which range from quite deep purple (usually with wide petals) through many shade of pinks and bicoloured or picotee flowers. We have no selected plants available sorry.
We flowered the first few here 6 years from sowing. They are now 7 but are still quite small rhizomes.
The pictures were sent to us by the original seed collector and are taken in the wild.
