{"id":7520,"date":"2013-04-23T08:08:21","date_gmt":"2013-04-23T15:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=7520"},"modified":"2013-04-23T21:43:28","modified_gmt":"2013-04-24T04:43:28","slug":"trilliums-ants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=7520","title":{"rendered":"Trilliums &#038; ants"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The moist forest floor was sprinkled with trilliums. The trillium is a springtime flower based on three: three leaves, three\u00a0sepals, three petals. It enriches an early seasonal walk through the woods.<\/p>\n<p>Not far from the trilliums was a vigorous anthill. This might seem irrelevant for the trilliums, but it turns out that there is a close relationship between ants and trilliums: it is the ants that spread the trillium seeds.<\/p>\n<p>First, a picture of a trillium showing its threesomeness.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-7522\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/trillium130422as.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Nearby was an anthill of\u00a0a thatch-mound nesting species in the Formica rufa group.<em id=\"__mceDel\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-7524\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/anthill130422s.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Attached to a trillium seed is a fleshy structure that ants like to eat. Ants collect the trillium seeds, take them back to the nest, eat the parts they like, and discard the seeds. The ants thereby spread\u00a0the seeds. Here is a closer view of some ants of that colony.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-7523\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/ants130422s.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Finally, another shot of an ant-mediated trillium.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-7521\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/trillium130422bs.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The moist forest floor was sprinkled with trilliums. The trillium is a springtime flower based on three: three leaves, three\u00a0sepals, three petals. It enriches an early seasonal walk through the woods. Not far from the trilliums was a vigorous &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=7520\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bugs","category-wildflowers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7520"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7534,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7520\/revisions\/7534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}