Jim, You must have ensured that your teachers earned their pay! Re: corm, I had forgotten about last year's discussion. I wish I could supply some decent literature in this department but it is quite scant. I am still in process of writing up the subject of "tuberous aroids" for Aroideana and digging up pertinent or supporting papers is not easy. I would put it slightly differently but I think we are driving at the same thing. I think the rhizomatous habit is the key baseline idea, and what it has evolved into in certain groups. It seems to be the most primitive rootstock type though this is mainly supposition on my part. The stem portion of a bulb and the corms we have been talking about both are derived, I think, from a rhizomatous ancestor/s that have become more compact, modified, stylized or modular. Clivia and Cryptostephanos both are thought-provoking in this regard in an otherwise bulbous plant family (also rhizomatous in at least some Scadoxus). They seem, vegetatively, ancestral and unspecialized. I would still maintain the idea that we need a workable and firm system of classification for all morphologies; it is unfortunate that rootstocks have gotten short shrift in this regard. I think your objection is that this should not force us to cram every example into a given category or definition. I agree. We must accept that there are anomalous expressions out there and we can handle them descriptively. Dylan