Hi Mary Sue and all: We are in the final stages of preparing a grant request to USDA-GRIN to jointly collect a number of taxa in NE China, including Allium (CBG is beginning to building a national collection of ornamental taxa), Iris (national collection of I. sibirica and hybrids) and Lilium (plant breeding). These genera are of interest to us (CBG) as well as to the Ornamental Crop Germplasm repository located at Ohio State University; a plant breeder at a major university is interested in some of the other taxa that are on our target list. Over time, I believe you will see the GRIN accessions of taxa of ornamental merit increase for those groups that have been identified as a priority. GRIN has had an Ornamental Woody Plant group for a number of years. The Ornamental Herbaceous Plant group is relatively new by comparison but has identified a number of genera as priorities. I am not familiar with their website, so can't provide the link to drop you directly into that list. Boyce Tankersley btankers@chicagobotanic.org -----Original Message----- From: Alan Meerow [mailto:miaam@ars-grin.gov] Sent: Monday, June 14, 2004 6:09 AM To: Pacific Bulb Society Cc: IBS MEMBERS Subject: Re: [pbs] National collections programs Mary Sue, One, the NPGS is not trying to compete with nurseries, and two, there are a sum total of two people responsible for preparing distributions. If a request is perceived as not having genuine research interest (i.e., from a breeder, grower, scientist), the request will usually only be filled if the material is unavailable commercially. I know of few requests that have been turned down. Alan > > I looked at the collections page on your web site: > http://www.ars-grin.gov/npgs/holdings.html > > As expected in an agricultural site it appears a lot of the holdings are > crops. It doesn't look like there are a lot of bulbs. Allium, as a source > of food, makes sense. Would the emphasis be on collecting ones that were > eaten? Looking through some of the species held at Pullman with a quick > browse I saw they they are not holding many of the Pacific northwest > species I grow. >