On 21 Dec 2012, at 17:42, threesisters@woosh.co.nz wrote: > It is the 21st. in New Zealand, we are still here!!!! No, you aren't. The crazies were right. The world ended. Minor problem: what has come after the end is indistinguishable from what was there before. Happy 14th baktun! Somewhat like Colchicum cultivars that are much of a muchness (to use a serious Briticism: it's amazing what decades of life in Canada has done to my vocabulary). One difficulty for those trying to acquire cultivars of nearly any bulb: the stocks of many of them are badly confused and scrambled, making it close to impossible to be sure you have what the label says you have. A friend who interned at Wisley for a couple of years in the late 1980s told me that at that time their bulb collections (crocuses and, iirc, colchicum, in particular) were badly scrambled. The problem is compounded by surprisingly vague descriptions, the sensitivity of flower color and growth habit on cultural conditions, and to a degree simple dishonesty. At the end of the day, you pay your money, plant the bulbs that arrive in the mail, and if what comes up pleases you, you keep it, otherwise you give it away to your enemies. (When presenting such gifts to your enemies, always include a label so that you can sneer at them in later years when they exhibit under the wrong name.) In the case of seed-grown species, a lot of seed in the exchanges is mis-named. I recently had seed-grown "Crocus minimus" flower; it's almost certainly Crocus laevigatus. And years ago "Tecophilaea cyanocrocus" turned out to be that pest of pests, Nothoscordum inodorum, which took a long time to eradicate once it seeded. (Apologies to those who've read this rantlet before, but the experience still rankles.) -- Rodger Whitlock Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Z. 7-8, cool Mediterranean climate