Description
In the past the name has been used interchangeably with T. apetalon, this is incorrect. There are two different and distinct species involved. The confusion is so complete that if you Google for pictures of smallii you need to go to the bottom go to page 2, before you find the first correctly named picture and page 9 for the next one!
Large, bright green leaves and purple-red flowers which have both petals and sepals (as can be seen in our picture) distinguish this at once but they can be separated also by flowers, leaves, sepals and pistils, anther:filament ratio and chromosomes! Trillium smallii is an exceedingly rare plant, even in its native Japan. It is extremely rare and barely in cultivation but is perfectly growable once you have it. I would treat the name “smallii” anywhere in literature or horticulture as being almost certainly wrongly applied to what will probably be apetalon.
Named for Dr. John K. Small (1869-1938), the first curator of the New York Botanical Garden.
