On 23 Jan 2010, at 12:29, Michael Phillips lamented regarding misnamed hippeastrums: > How long have these suppliers have been shipping the wrong bulbs, perhaps > knowingly, and/or blatantly engaging in false advertising? Since at least the end of World War II. You can go back to the AGS journal from the post war years and find laments about misnamed bulbs sold via the Dutch bulb trade. I've gotten myself in hot water before by making sweeping generalizations about the unethical behavior of the Dutch bulb trade, but I think the facts speak for themselves. The thing that really rots my socks is that many of the misnamings are clearly deliberate. Go into any garden center during the fall bulb season and examine the crocus corms. You are quite likely to notice that some of the blue cultivars of the chrysanthus/biflorus persuasion have tunics that shout "I am a Crocus tommasinianus." The naive purchaser buys a "blue" crocus and what flowers in the spring is purple, close enough for government work. The moral is that if you are buying bulbs from any ordinary commercial source, you must assume the name is wrong until demonstrated otherwise. For the sake of one's peace of mind, calm digestion, and blood pressure, it's also advisable not to get worked up over misnamings. Just view the whole thing as something of a crap shoot that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. -- Rodger Whitlock Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate on beautiful Vancouver Island http://maps.google.ca/maps/…