Norton - I read with interest your work on propagating Peruvian Amaryllidaceae sp from seed. This is of particular interest to me as I am from Australia and have recently travelled briefly in Peru and was delighted to see just a very few Peruvian species in flower in the wild and was quite astounded by the extremely harsh conditions in which they were growing. I saw Eustephia darwinii in flower at Machu Pichu and in the hills above Cusco and Eustephia kawidei in flower at the ancient Incan village above Pisac. I have not grown Stenomesson sp from seed before but have grown a number of other South American west coast species, particularly Chilean Rhodophiala. I assume some Rhodophiala sp extend their domain into Peru. The growth of the young seedlings as you have described seems quite typical for the flat wing seed Amaryllidaceae sp from South America - in my opinion a bulb the size of a pinky finger nail is very reasonable after 5 months growth. I am not familiar with the species you mentioned (Stenomesson flavum) as, unfortunately, very few Peruvian bulb species are available in Australia but I would imagine a mature bulb of this species to be somewhat larger than mature Rhodophiala bulbs which in my experience, after 5 months growth are certainly much smaller than a pinky nail! I suspect you are doing very well with you bulbs' growth. I would encourage you to pot them into deep pots as soon as possible because the typical habit of species that have a long dry summer period is to get their roots as deep as possible as quick as possible. Further, it would not be ideal for the bulbils to have their roots in wet soil at the base of the shallow container you have presumably sown the seeds in, as this may cause the roots to rot. From what you have described, it would seem that the species you are growing would, once mature, not normally be growing this time of the year (summer in southern hemisphere) but young seedlings will often defy normal seasonal growth patterns if the growing conditions suit so that they can develop as much as possible during the good growing conditions - you need to encourage this by getting the seedlings into nice deep pots of a well drained growing mix. I look forward to seeing you results. Bruce Schroder Melbourne, Australia