The Amazing Adventures of Archibald Esq.
Horticultural Hound: Dog Flower
Dog Flower — Trillium erectum — is a houndish plant listed by the RHS Horticultural Database. A native of Eastern North America, this plant has been given the RHS Award of Garden Merit, meaning it is an exceptional plant that is not difficult to cultivate.
Other accepted names are: BIRTHROOT; AMERICAN SHAMROCK; BATHROOT; BETHROOT; BLOODY NOSE; BUMBLEBEE ROOT; DEATH ROOT; DOG FLOWER; GROUND LILY; HERB PARIS; INDIAN BALM; LAMB’S QUARTERS; LAMB’S SUCCORY; NOSEBLEED; ORANGE BLOSSOMS; RED BENJAMIN; SQUAWROOT; STINKING BENJAMIN; TRUE LOVE.
These lovely woodland plants are the red variety of trillium. The white trillium are known as trillium grandiflora.
Trillium blossom in early spring and pepper the twinkling woodland floor with patches of colour.
Like the dog-toothed violet, dog flowers prefer to grow in rich, humously leaf-mold in the dappled shade of winter woods, in areas that will become dark and cool in the summer, being covered completely by a thick forest canopy.
True to the trend of associating things doggish with those relating to plants that are either malodorous or non-scented, dog flower produce malodorous (stinky) pink to purple flowers.
Wickipedia says the flowers have the smell of rotting meat, as they are pollinated by flies — but little feet, who is used to seeing trillium in her Native Canada, tells me that she doesn’t remember them as being particularly stinky. Indeed, the white trillium is the provincial flower of Ontario.
The watercolour painting of Dog Flower comes from Agnes Fitzgibbon’s Canadian Wild Flowers, held at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (Canada).
The plant has an astringent root used in old folk medicine especially to ease childbirth, hence the name ‘birthroot.’ Despite this old usage, trillium leaves contain calcium oxalate crystals and crystal raphides, and should not be consumed by humans.
Awoof! Archie
Posted 14 Apr 08
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