Trillium hibbersonii seeds wanted

[Maggi Young]

I've had this request for Trillium hibbersonii seed for a Canadian project.... if you can help, message me, please, by Forum pm or via  info AT srgc.org.uk

Request reads.......
Hello, Scottish Rock Garden Club People,  

 
I am very happy to find your web site.  I was looking for images of Trillium ovatum hibbersonii.

 I’m a resident of Otter Point District in the Capital Regional District on Vancouver Island.  The point that this district is named for was one of the sites where Trillium ovatum hibbersonii was found in the wild.  As your members probably know, this dwarf trillium is now very rare in the wild.  I would like to try growing it from seed and re-establishing it on Otter Point.  The point is now a park belonging to the Capital Regional District.

 Your club’s site is the most promising I have found for seed.   I spoke to someone earlier this evening who knows of a nursery that has good success with wild plants so if  someone can spare some seed, I do think I will be able to get some plants started.

 Looking forward to hearing from you.
H. P.  

[John Aipassa]

Maggi,

Maybe the Trillium Enthusiast Discussion List "Trillium-L" can be of some assistance for this person too. The seed exchange will soon start there. The email address of Trillum-L is: TRILLIUM-L@nic.surfnet.nl.

Cheers,
John

[Maggi Young]

Excellent idea, John.   
I should have thought of that!!
 I'll pass on the details.

[Rodger Whitlock]

I am very happy to find your web site.  I was looking for images of Trillium ovatum hibbersonii.

 I’m a resident of Otter Point District in the Capital Regional District on Vancouver Island.  The point that this district is named for was one of the sites where Trillium ovatum hibbersonii was found in the wild.  As your members probably know, this dwarf trillium is now very rare in the wild.  I would like to try growing it from seed and re-establishing it on Otter Point.  The point is now a park belonging to the Capital Regional District.

 Your club’s site is the most promising I have found for seed.   I spoke to someone earlier this evening who knows of a nursery that has good success with wild plants so if  someone can spare some seed, I do think I will be able to get some plants started.

I'm afraid, Maggi, that your correspondent is mistaken. There is considerable local lore about T. hibbersonii around Victoria if you know who to talk to and can separate the wheat of sound information from the chaff of horticultural legend. is not a location I have ever heard mentioned as a site for T. hibbersonii. Possibly your correspondent has confused T. hibbersonii with Dodecatheon pulchellum 'Sooke', which was found in the Sooke area, possibly at Otter Point, and is afaik extinct in the wild.

T. hibbersonii was originally found at sites inland from , but much further north than Sooke and Otter Point. It was found in the 1930s by Jack Hibberson during his work as a timber cruiser (the men who assess the forest for its commercial cutting potential). I have authoritative, first-hand information from professional botanists that T. hibbersonii still grows at the site where it was originally found, and it would seem to be in no risk of extinction.

My forgettery is working overtime this morning, and I cannot recall the area where it was found more precisely than "the west coast". However, I have been told that it grows by the thousands in cracks of seaside cliffs near .  From my informant's description, it sounds like these populations are simply unreachable.

It is a plant that grows in greasy black peaty soils with very low nutrient content. I understand that at least two garden populations of it in Victoria were killed outright when fertilized, so my own pot has a big label DO NOT FERTILIZE as a reminder. Ecologically, it grows in a fairly wet climate. The west coast of Vancouver Island gets rain at all times of the year. Otter Point, on the other hand, though not as dry as the east coast of Vancouver Island, is probably too dry in summer for this little trillium to do well without supplemental watering.

It is a scarce plant in cultivation even here in its homeland, and those who possess hold it close. It took me 20+ years to wheedle a very few starts, though they are doing well. At the risk of sounding like the grinch I am, I rather doubt that Maggi's correspondent will have much success acquiring it, if he (she?) is not well known to the possessors as a capable grower.

[Lesley Cox]

My several good plants (originally from seed given to me by Peter Erskine) last year didn't come up at all, even though they'd flowered in the same place for about 6 years and regularly set seed. A single very small plant did come up and this year that too has vanished. I didn't fertilize them (laziness rather than intentionally) and they were, I thought very happy with small rhodos, primulas, haberlea etc. Most of the seeds produced were sent elsewhere and the most recent lot, which I sowed myself, haven't come through, so it looks as if that's that, for me.

[Rodger Whitlock]

A cultural clue re T. hibbersonii:

The late Albert de Mezey used to grow this as something of a personal specialty. Many years ago, while visiting his garden, I was fascinated to see trays of fine-ish gravel parked in the shade of his house where it got very little direct sun, but strong sky light: that's what he grew his Hibberson trilliums in. It was probably just water-worn sand that had been run through a fly screen and the coarse material remaining used as a growth medium.

Taking the hint, I grow mine in a pot full of pumice. So far, touch wood, it seems to agree with them. Next spring will tell the tale, success or failure, when the seed I scattered into the pot germinates — or doesn't — and the mature plants re-emerge — or don't.

[Maggi Young]

Oh, Rodger, yes, you are an old grinch! As states, the plan is to pass any seed to a nursery with experience with native plants....viz "I spoke to someone earlier this evening who knows of a nursery that has good success with wild plants so if  someone can spare some seed, I do think I will be able to get some plants started."

I have heard again from our Canadian seeker after seeds who adds,

"....a neighbour who was trained as a gardener at the Horticultural Centre of the Pacific confirmed that he has heard T. hibbersonii did once grow on Otter Point. 
 
  It seems the Hibberson trillium is touchy so I understand why people might not want to risk their seeds but I would hope people will  not be discouraged ....
 
The only wild site I have found mentioned on the Internet for the Hibberson trillium in Hesquiat Sound.  I think I have seen another mention in a study done of plants found at or near light house stations on the British Columbia coast, but that is a foggy memory....   

Thanks, People,hope you can help"
 

[Lesley Cox]

I had a good fingering through the place where mine were in case they had been taking a year off as things sometimes do. But there's nothing there except roots of Rh. keleticum and camschaticum album grown through the trillium space. Surely they could stand those?

[Rodger Whitlock]

The more I think about it, the more certain I am that someone has mixed up in their memory T. hibbersonii and the Sooke form of Dodecatheon pulchellum. Both are rare plants native to Vancouver Island and sought after by rock gardeners, but that's about all they have in common. It wasn't your correspondent, Maggi, but possibly his neighbor that got mixed up, or someone further back than that.

Yes, Hesquiat Sound rings a bell.

I simply can't emphasize enough that ecological factors alone militate against the Hibberson trillium having been a native at Otter Point. Maybe right after the glaciers melted 10,000 years ago, but not since. Otter Point is simply too dry. Tofino, also on the west coast of V.I. but about 40 miles south of Hesquiat Sound, gets 148 inches (3.77 m) of rain annually - over 12 feet - and the annual rainfall gets higher as you go further north up the coast.

Sooke (next door to Otter Point) only gets 26" of annual rainfall; about 1/6 as much as Tofino, and scarcely wetter than Victoria proper, where Mediterranean bulbs thrive and trilliums are not happy.

I rest my case.

[Diane Whitehead]

I agree with Rodger that it is the Sooke form of Dodecatheon
that grew at Otter Point, not Trillium hibbersonii.

There is no scarcity of Trillium hibbersonii.  It is available from
Thimble Farms on Saltspring Island.  http://www.thimblefarms.com/
The owner, Richard Fraser, bought his original collection of hibbersonii
from the Hibberson family who had been selling it for decades to European
gardeners.  ( I saw it growing in Prague).  He continues to grow it from seed.

I have several times posted pictures of my clump that has grown
from a single seedling given me by Albert deMezey about 35 years ago.

[johnw]

Albert deMezey

Now that was a character!

I remember being at at VIRAGS Conference in the 80's.  Just at closing time we were admiring his magnificent clump of Primula on the awards table. Albert, who we recognized by his name tag, came along and we commended him on it. He inverted the beautiful clay pan, handed us the clump and walked away pan in hand. Not a word spoken.

johnw