Page 11 - OASC June 2021 Newsletter

Iconic, familiar trillium has deep roots in the Canadian story
David Hawke - Monday, 17 May 2021
Official recognition began after First World War as white trillium was chosen to be planted on graves of Canadian soldiers, but there’s lots to learn about this perennial.
Without a doubt one of the most easily recognized signs of spring is the blooming of the white trilliums within our local woodlots.
Of the four species of trilliums found around here, the whites bloom just a day or so after the reds, and then the painted and nodding species kick in over the coming weeks.
It’s no secret that we love our white trilliums... it is our provincial floral emblem; its image is within the logo of several provincial organizations and many businesses and even a school board have the name tucked ahead of whatever it is they do.
Official recognition began back just after the First World War, as there was a committee formed to choose a flower to be planted on the graves of Canadian servicemen buried overseas. The white trillium was chosen but the official process to enshrine this species was never completed, so Ontario took it on in March 1937 under our Floral Emblem Act.
With this new designation came a great venue for teachers on Nature Day field trips (yes, they did such things in the 1930s and 40s) to sound wonderfully informed and authoritarian (yes, they did that too back then) by declaring it to be illegal to pick a white trillium.
Unfortunately, no such law has ever existed, and even in 2009 the proposed White Trillium Protection Act did not get past the first reading at Queen’s Park.
In 1964 the Ontario government, under PC leadership of John Robarts, designed the first provincial logo; this design was tweaked in 1972 by PC Bill Davis.
In 2006 Dalton McGuinty, of the provincial Liberal party, radically changed the design to the “three men in a hot tub” look (inadvertent, I’m sure). And recently, in 2019, the Doug Ford PC party revised it again, so it now looks like the original design.
Round, round we go. (Anyone ever figure out the cost of replacing all the stationary, building signs, vehicle stickers, business cards and tourism advertising each time a new logo appeared? Just wondering.)
The white trillium has been in the news for several decades, indeed centuries. Back in 1760 a British botani- cal group named this flower True Love of Canada. While I am not sure of the Indigenous name of this plant, it was already being used medicinally in wound dressing and the birthing process, hence the early transla- tions of it being called Birthroot.
As the white trilliums are large, common and easily encountered in the spring, they do indeed represent our collective sigh at getting through the winter. Trilliums are called phototrophic, in that they face toward the sun and will twist their stalks to ensure the blossom follows the sun across the sky. If the trail you are walk- ing along happens to run by a south-facing slope within the maple forest, you will see the proverbial carpet of white blossoms.
June/21
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