Dear All, Scilla madeirensis is certainly one of the most beautiful winter flowering bulbs..... if it flowers and grows well. Apparently this bulb has such a narrow genetic constitution that is on the brink of extinction in the wild. It is almost sterile and even wild plants are said to produce no or very little seed. The reason for this is not known as far as I am aware of. I wonder what you got as seed under this name. There were some bulbs for sale when I was in Madeira many years ago and I bought 2 or three, hoping to have different clones and to get seed..... but no. I think there was one single seed in all these years but the seedling did not live very long. I find this bulb very difficult to grow. It is one of those plants that is always missing something: it is either too wet or too dry, too cold or too warm or too bright or too shady. Madeira has a very mild cool moist oceanic climate without extemes , so probably my greenhouse gets too hot in summer. I am sure it is NOT frost-hardy, my plants go limp and floppy even a few degrees above freezing. At Mike Salmon's former nursery in Britain I have seen a magnificent plant in bloom a long time ago, something you immediatey would want to grow at first sight. But Mike had no seed, no offsets. If I remember correctly this plant in all parts was much much bigger than my own bulbs even during their best days. I have a feeling that it is a different plant, a different form of the same species or even another relates species. Mike's plant was even bigger than than the ones at Kew but I do not remember where he got it from. Maybe it is simply virused? And lacking and losing vigour this way? I saw huge clumps in many Madeiran garden, but it was not the season for flowers. If it never sets seed, the only means of propagation is vegetatively which would ease the spread of virus. Maybe this would be an interesting object for a good micro-propagator? Greetings from summery hot and VERY dry Germany Uli