>I haven't seen all the onco species in the wild, but have seen a number of them, and some of their soils didn't look very organic to me. A photo of Iris paradoxa will appear with a little article I wrote for the next Bulb Garden newsletter, and I hope it shows the substrate, because it was on the very top of a rocky hill in what looked like pure mineral soil, and flowering like mad. I forgot to mention that I ignored the comment about Iris paradoxa growing in peat moss, faux or real, in the wild, since they do just fine here in the “sandy loam”, which is more sand than loam, and has no organic matter in it. It’s sort of intermediate between pure sand and pure clay, as far as water penetration is concerned. The texture is such that five minutes’ worth of rain is enough to penetrate to the roots (unlike clay), but the soil dries out shortly after that (unlike sand). Bob _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/