I wonder if anyone can suggest contacts for people working with and or have an interest specifically with Lilium from the eastern and central regions of the USA & Canada. Specifically I am seeking seed or wild origin seed provenances for a few species to sow preferably this coming spring. Auchgourish Botanic Garden has last year joined BGCI (Botanic Gardens Conservation International) and have opted to 'adopt' Lilium and related genera such as Cardiocrinum, Gagea, Korolkovia, Nomocharis and Notholirion in addition with a view to maintaining ex situ conservation populations of each species, initially with three wild seed origins [provenances] per taxon moving eventually for species with larger distributions to five provenances. Clearly however micro species with restricted distributions such as LL. occidentale and pitkinense [both of which are here in very limited numbers, but not the pink Pitkin form] are perhaps never likely to have more than one provenance. Within each provenance the plan is to maintain groups of some 10 - 15 bulbs. Virtually all the western USA / Canada species as well as virtually all the Asiatic and European taxa at species and subspecies levels are already here in some cases with only single provenances but there are one or two examples such as LL. catesbaei, iridollae and michauxii without any representation, and LL michiganense and canadense with poor representation. I would also welcome learning from anyone with an interest in the remoter located lilies, particularly those of southern California including areas towards the Mexican border as there seems to be some anomolous information arriving here which suggests all the discovery work has still not been completed, or if it has it hasn't been validly published. I appreciate very much that majority interest in lilies in North America revolves around hybridisation or so it seems to this outsider however I hope to be able to learn what others are doing in relation to the species which are so important as the corner stone for the hybridists. Finally, can anyone confirm, or otherwise, whether any species lilies are found growing in nature in the north western regions of the Mexican hill and coastal country, or indeed anywhere else in Mexico? Many thanks, Iain -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter. We are a community of 6 million users fighting spam. SPAMfighter has removed 54762 of my spam emails to date. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len/ The Professional version does not have this message