Thanks for that posting, Arnold. I’ve been on the verge of writing to you privately to see how you colchicums are doing. The story down here is about the same: the bivonae cultivars and hybrids with obvious bivonae influence bloomed early, so did Nancy Lindsay/pannonicum/whatever and “byzantinum album”/Innocence and byzantinum itself. A few others bloomed, but most of those with speciosum in their background have not appeared above ground yet. I dug a corm of Colchicum speciosum ‘Album’ to see what was going on; it’s fine. By now it has a five inch tube, but there has been no sign of flowers yet. We switched suddenly from 80º F days to 60 º F days (but the nights have been only a bit cooler than that) and we’re finally getting day after day of rain. Biarum tenuifolium is about to bloom, several crocuses (C. speciosus, C. goulimyi in several forms, C. tournefortii; C. asumaniae and C. byzantinus have buds up) are blooming - or would be if the rain let up. Oddly, there has been no sign of Crocus kotschyanus yet. Most but not all of the Sternbergia have by now bloomed. I soaked the South Africans (Nerine, Amaryllis, Oxalis) and they are responding quickly with vegetative growth. Various Arum are tentatively putting up foliage. Arilate irises, still under cover and as dry as I can keep them, are putting up foliage. It’s not a typical autumn here at all. Jim McKenney jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where my new label maker is getting a workout. My Virtual Maryland Garden http://www.jimmckenney.com/ BLOG! http://mcwort.blogspot.com/ Webmaster Potomac Valley Chapter, NARGS Editor PVC Bulletin http://www.pvcnargs.org/ Webmaster Potomac Lily Society http://www.potomaclilysociety.org/