Bulbs, Perennials, Weeds > Trillium > Trillium erectum > Trillium erectum
Trillium erectum
Wake-Robin, Red or Purple Trillium
Origin: Native to eastern and north-eastern areas of North America. The genus name comes from the Greek word 'tris', meaning thrice, in reference to both leaves and parts of the flower existing in threes.
| Family |
| Melanthiaceae |
| Genus |
| Trillium |
| Species |
| erectum |
| Category |
| Bulbs, Perennials, Weeds |
| USDA Hardiness Zone |
| 7b - 8a |
| Canadian Hardiness Zone |
| 7 |
| RHS Hardiness Zone |
| H5 |
| Temperature (°C) |
| -15 - (-9) |
| Temperature (°F) |
| 5 - 15 |
| Height |
| 10 - 50 cm |
| Spread |
| 10 - 50 cm |
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Cultivars
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Description and Growing Information
Flowering Period
| General Description |
| Trillium erectum is a rhizomatous perennial wildflower with three smooth, green, broadly ovate leaves and dark garnet to white petals. |
| Landscape |
| A natural choice for woodland gardens. Also does well in a peat terrace or pocket planting in rock gardens. |
| Cultivation |
| Grow in part shade, in moist, well-drained, slightly alkaline, well-aerated, humusy (leafmould is preferable) soil. Tolerates sun when soil is consistently moist and shaded during the hottest part of the day. |
| Growth |
| Fast |
| Habitat |
| Moist woodland and scrub, often on limestone formations. |
| Leaf Description |
| Green, soft, glabrous, glossy, up to 20 cm long, broadly ovate, apex acute or cuspidate, margins entire, venation reticulate, sessile (immobile), in a group of three arranged in an apical whorl. |
| Flower Description |
| Solitary, terminal, upright or oblique on pedicels up to 10 cm long, three lanceolate, sepals up to 5 cm long and light green suffused with red-purple to margins which are the darkest, petals are dark garnet to white, elliptic with apex acute, up to 8 cm long, spreading or incurved, distinctly veined, unpleasant smelling. |
| Fruit Description |
| Berries are glabrous, tri-valved. |
| Propagation |
| By careful division and replanting when leaves have died down. Can also be propagated by fresh seed, cleaned and sown 15 mm deep in a propagating mix with leafmould and kept in a cool, shady frame. Plants propagated from seed take about 5 years to flower. |
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