John Flintoff wrote, >???? Hopefully Chris Brickell will eventually publish his >horticultural monograph of colchicums and Karen Pearson at the >Gothenberg BC will summarize her extensive work in a comprehensive paper. I think the Swedish botanist's name is spelled Karin Persson. She has named a great many new species, mostly from Greece and the Balkans, in recent years, which in my opinion will not help to clear up the confusion. I heard from someone that her monograph is complete but there is some hold-up with publishing it; I don't know whether it's lack of funding or something else (from editorial experience I tend to suspect a botanical artist is not finishing the drawings). The two collections of Colchicum decaisnei that I have here are similar in size but one does have wider tepals than the other. One is from cultivated seed from the UK (but is definitely not C. laetum hort.) and the other is a wild collection. Incidentally, for many years I've been growing a miniature white-flowered colchicum received from an English source as C. cupanii, but I'm pretty sure it's C. hungaricum. However, in the new entries for the NARGS photo contest there is a photo, taken in the wild, and identified as C. hungaricum, that is rather different from anything I have under that name. It may be an unusual form, however, because it is white with a pink base. One of the prettiest small colchicums here I bought from Antoine Hoog, a very reliable botanist-grower, as C. hungaricum 'Valentine', and it is bright pink and bigger than other C. hungaricum I've seen. There are some very tiny Colchicum species, and these tend to increase well. Increase in species also seems to vary with individuals (or populations); for instance, I have three collections of C. variegatum, and one of them increases fairly fast, but the others hardly at all. Some species seem to set seed more readily than others, but it's hard to collect the seed because it is apparently attractive to ants, which usually find it before I do. Oddly, the species formerly known as Merendera hang onto their seeds better; perhaps the ant-attractant is not present on them? Jane McGary Northwestern Oregon, USA