On 14 Sep 03 at 21:45, Marguerite English wrote: > Not too long ago, a message on one of the plant lists to which I > belong identified Sternbergia lutea as Crocus sternbergia lutea. I > thought Sternbergia is an Amaryllid and not an Iridaceae. Was that > message leading me astray, or has Sternbergia really changed its > information? To say a sternbergia is a crocus is complete b.s. I am willing to bet that the person asserting this nonsense was very definite about it: it seems like it's always the folks who don't know very much that are absolutely positive about what they know. Newbies: get a basic book on botany or plant identification, and bone up a little on how the various families differ. Among bulbs, the three families Iridaceae, Amaryllidaceae, and Liliaceae account for a pretty large chunk of what we grow, and you will be a better gardener once you've learned to distinguish them. In particular, each of these families has at least one well known crocus-like genus. In the Iridaceae, Crocus and Romulea; in the Amaryllidaceae, Sternbergia; and in the Liliaceae, Colchicum. It's worth your while studying these from the point of view of family identification. -- Rodger Whitlock Victoria, British Columbia, Canada "To co-work is human, to cow-ork, bovine."