Thursday, July 8, 2010

Trillium Seeds and the Ants that Love Them



Trillium luteum which I only have one of apparently didn't produce any seeds unfortunately.

image
Trillium cuneatum flowered a bit and has a seed pod.

image

Trillium grandiflorum (my favorite) had loads of plants come up and flower. This produced the most seeds so far.

image
After flowering in the spring Trilliums produce a berry. To the left is T. grnadiflorum which varies in size, this is the largest mine created. To the right is T. cuneatum.

image
Inside the berry it's pretty much hallow besides a few seeds and fleshy material holding them in place.

image
Each seed has a package of eliasome on it. That's the white stuff, and ants find it irresistible. 

image
image

image
image
They hallowed it out pretty fast.

image

image
I tried a few seeds with a Crematogaster colony and they didn't know what to do with them. Some nibbled at the food part while others tried stinging the seed.