Diane Whitehead wrote >And the instruction to take pictures of the variations present is >important, too. I have so many gorgeous pictures stuck in my head - >single pictures that were published in books, sometimes fifty years >ago. They became my ideal of what many species should be, but when I >have bought the plants or grown seeds, invariably they would not look >much like those photos. This is really true. And along with it, it's important to grow as many different clones from wild-collected seed, because then you'll see a range of variation. For instance, recently some visitors were looking at early crocuses in my bulb house and asked what one pretty yellow one might be. It's a wild form of Crocus korolkowii, which most people know only from the selections with dark markings on the exterior of the outer tepals (of course, those are wild forms too, collected for their particular attractions). Without the brown markings (just the tube has a brown flush), it looks like a different species, but in fact it has its own beauty in robust flowers of a color that reminds me of Meyer lemons. Now in bloom here is a group of Iris reticulata grown from wild seed, including both deep violet and light blue forms; we have inexpensive named clones of both those colors, but how easy is it to acquire stock of them that isn't infected with ink spot disease? Jane McGary Portland, Oregon, USA