Already wrote too much that wasn't bulb-related! So I won't reply to the list at large. But yes, red-bellies in particular are bad for dogs, dead in 20 minutes and with antivenene about $1100 a shot at the vet and often more than one needed, you'd better really love your pooch. Witless terrier was growling at me from under the roses a couple of Christmases back and I thought "oh, she's got a rat" but when I hauled her out I thought "oh she's killed a snake" then realised "oh she hasn't yet quite killed a snake". So my christmas present of a ladies 410 shotgun was used to despatch the mortally wounded but still very dangerous creature, only a two-footer but when we lived closer to a national park we had a resident as thick as my forearm. The browns are deadly from day one and they love to lay eggs in mulch, so late summer is a time to avoid poking around in it. Normally you leave them alone (it is illegal to kill one actually) and there are a few snake-catching businesses who charge more for a home visit than I'm allowed to! (Though I guess Australian medical cos ts are lower than the US, different system and all that) No human deaths for a long time - and the last few have involved alcohol so I guess that's just evolution in action. But they do give me the heebie-jeebies a bit - it's not just sun protection that always has me in long pants. On a bulb-related note, I have been thrilled with the germination rates from my bulb exchange seeds, even ones not planted for a few seasons. Mostly I have liliums and even the more picky US ones have at least poked a few seedlings up. I have just potted up the survivors from I think my very first received seed, SIGNA, alophia lahue and cypella coelestis, though when the plant stand was blown over in a gale and I had to rescue what I could things became jumbled - there's a pot called "viridis" that is either lachenalia or ixia, have to wait and see. The only part of the US I've visited was Baltimore - for a few days just after Christmas on the way home from eloping to France - enough years ago that all the young black kids on the train had pagers!! We visited the Smithsonian to see the moon landing crafts and the supermarkets to see a cross section of the real life, but wrong time of year for flora. Now when I think of travel anywhere it's not really for the culture, it's to see the trees! (I had expressed a desire to go to Sakhalin island to a Russian patient, who just have me a look and remarked drily "you like bears?") Best Ceridwen Sent from my iPhone > On 2 Nov 2013, at 10:15 am, Jim McKenney <jamesamckenney@verizon.net> wrote: > > Ceridwen, I wonder how many non-Australians know what the Australian red bellied snake and the brown snake are. Your casual references to them gives no indication. Both are members of the same family as cobras, mambas, kraits and coral snakes among others. According to the wikipedia entry for the brown snake, it is the world's second most venomous land snake. > > Your poor dogs! > > Jim McKenney > Montgomery County, Maryland, USA where we have local snake species called red bellied snake and brown snake - ours are strictly of the harmless garden variety. > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/