I was in shock earlier this week when I noticed all the trilliums in this bush. A bus I take goes by this bush and I honestly had never seen so many trilliums. In all directions the trilliums went for the full quarter mile wide length and breadth. The shot I include is more typical than atypical. Sure I wanted a lot of trilliums in the shot to make my point. The biggest difference I noted in the different directions was that the trilliums were on average pointed toward a certain direction. So I took this shot from that direction so more trilliums were facing the camera.
Oh, I had seen trilliums many times before when I was growing up. At least three times in my childhood I was walking with a group through the woods and the group would spot a lone trillium or a couple of the plants. I was told at all these encounters that trilliums were the provincial flower of my province, Ontario. As a result it was against the law to pick the flower.
I am only able to interpolate from that trillium scarce childhood to the present day plague of trilliums. Apparently trilliums are a plant where if you pick the flower, the whole plant dies. So maybe there is some truth to the no picking trilliums rule. Indeed, this link gives the rules for picking trilliums.
The way I see it, Ontarians believed the story that picking any trillium is illegal. So instead we picked Jack-in-the-Pulpits, Queen Ann’s Lace, and whatever interesting forest plants we could find. But fearing the law, we all left the trillium alone.
Finally, we now get to see what we created. Because of selective picking, we now have a plague of trilliums. If this over abundance persists every year, I suggest we let the no picking trilliums law be taken off our books. Besides, we might be able to honour this provincial flower indoors and not just on nice days out in the woods.
Last year (2015) I saw no trilliums in this bush and this year (2016) the trilliums are as plentiful as in this picture. I had thought that for plagues of animals and plants there was more of a 7 or 10 year cycle. Apparently not so for trilliums.
