Trillium Flowers, Redwood Forest. Golden Gate National Recreation Area, California. March 3, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Trillium flowers bloom beneath the redwood forest, Northern California.
This is another in what is likely to be a series of photographs of trillium blooms in the redwood forest just north of San Francisco. On this morning I arrived before the crowds that often come across the Golden Gate to visit this nearby forest, and I walked into the redwood groves while there was still a relatively small number of people. Despite this being a very dry winter, some recent rains had moistened things up a bit and there was a fair amount of water around – and it almost seemed like plants that had been waiting for water were now making up for lost time.
At first I didn’t see too many trillium plants or flowers, but as I walked I began to come across more of them. A hike on a side-trail that traversed a hillside brought me to many more flowers, and in a few places they were thick enough and close enough together that I could include groups of them in the frame. Here I put on a very wide angle lens, and shot from a very close distance at a large aperture so that I could include this row of flowers and throw the background of the forest floor out of focus.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
Indeed, Muir Woods is a great place to look for them… and right about now is the time. Regarding other wildflowers, some of us have, of course, begun trying to guess how the season will develop. A number of people think that less rain can sometimes lead to more flowers! We’ll see…
Dan
Ah, makes sense. A few years back I took tons of wildflower pictures, tried to match them with a name. This is one of a few that stumped me. Muir woods I believe is where it was taken. Hoping for a good flower showing this spring, Henry Coe is one of my favorites for this
Doug, you sound a bit like me. I know lots of flowers by location, season, plant form, etc… but in all too many cases I do not know the name of the plant! In this case, I’ve always assumed that the “tri” in “trillium” referred to the “threes” found in this plant and flower – leaves and petals.
Dan
I’ve taken pictures of these and it has always been a mystery to my what plant it was. Thx Dan