Greetings, Someone mentioned that they preferred photos to paintings. Auriol Batten' s illistrations are far superior to any photographs I have seen of Dierema. Unless the developer has an actual flower in his hands when he develops the film, it is extremely unlikely that he will get the shades correct. Mrs Batten had the actual flower in her hands and managed to get the colour hue perfect. I had a professional photographer take slides of D. dubium for me at least three times and everytime the developer has glitched on the colouring! Dierama grow in almost any location. The D. erectum at Ngome (N. Zululand) grow in damp grassland whereas the D. dubium at Mapumulo (Natal Midlands) grow in harsh dry sandstone. Those protected from the wind get stems that reach over 1,5 metres in height but those growing on Sibuyise only have stems of about 30cm in length. Goldblatt IDied the flower for me. I have lodged 14 specimens of Natal Dierama with the Natal Herbarium to date. At Mapumulo, within 1,000 metres of each other are growing three different species. D. dubium grows on the edges of a cliff, D. nixonianum grows in a gully adjactent to a dirt track in rich humis and pauciflorum grows above it. Looking back at my notes for D. pauciflorum, I see that the clump partially taken to the Herbarium contained 66 actively growing corms, 103 dormant corms, just over 50 corms had flower stems, 2-7 flowers per infloresence, height of leaves was 100-150mm, clump size was +/_ 250 mm in diameter and the flowers were erect to semi pendulous. There were a total of 5 clumps located. In passing, after taking notes, I replanted most of the clump. Lastly the D. dracomontana grow mostly in shallow water that ices over and the D. sertum here at Umlaass Road grow in dry sandstone and are in flower/seed at the moment. Regards Greg