Mary Sue, thank you. If the story had not mentioned Purdy’s digging, I would have done so. But perhaps some readers would have skipped around and missed the passage, and its implications. It is a classic tale of hurting the one you love. A small foretaste of what we’ve all been doing to our planet. Now I am so blue, I can scarcely type. Amid the flames and smoke, some of us have recently been wondering how the lilies of W N America are faring. Purdy writes not just about pillage, but about the conditions the lilies preferred in the wild, and how he cultivated them. No doubt such discussions are frivolous. I am far from imagining that one could conserve a few charismatic taxa, such as lilies and the other bulbs we celebrate on this list, while leaving the rest behind. Paige Woodward > On Jul 18, 2023, at 7:14 AM, Mary Sue Ittner via pbs <pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> wrote: > > It is unfortunate that someone who cared so much about California's native bulbs was responsible for the loss of so many. For those of you who did not read the whole article there is this: > "Carl sent the bulb to a plant dealer in New Jersey who promised to pay him $1.50 for each 100 bulbs he could send. The dealer was Woolson & Co., of Passaic, New Jersey; the firm's 1883 catalog includes a dozen species of Calochortus bulbs collected by Purdy. The Woolson catalog has been digitized by Mertz Library staff and may be accessed here. Purdy would go on to establish a major nursery company specializing in the native plants and flowers of California especially its bulbs. His firm, at its peak of production, harvested over half a million native bulbs from the wild per year for export to dealers around the globe." > > This reminds me of a story about Wayne Roderick who also loved native bulbs and would take visitors from other countries to see them in the wild, but would threaten to leave them without transportation back if they dared to dig a bulb. > > Mary Sue > > On 7/17/2023 4:38 PM, Paige Woodward via pbs wrote: >> Here is an online presentation from the NY Botanical Garden: >> >> The Man from Ukiah: >> Carl Purdy and the Bulbs and Wild Flowers of California >> >> https://libguides.nybg.org/c.php/… > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… > Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> > PBS Forum https://… _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> PBS Forum https://…