Two plants I just noted share the species epithet "splendens," though not much else. Rhodophiala splendens, from Chileflora seed sown in 2014, has produced its first flowering stem. Its bright red flowers are smaller than what I've seen in nature, but probably the plants seen in Chile were much older, with bigger bulbs. I have not dried out this plant much, and I leave its pot on a stand in my covered patio in winter, as it's a native of higher elevations. Curiously, I don't find an entry for it in either of the series of Chilean plant guides I have, but it's shown on the Chileflora website and my plant, which has two flowers on the stem, matches their photos. Calochortus splendens is not one of the more interesting-looking flowers in its genus, since its flowers are soft lavender-pink and barely marked with violet in the middle on some individuals. This year my plants, about 7 or 8 clones, have been flowering for a remarkably long period. As I was cleaning out their area, I found that the current flowers and indeed buds were coming from green stems closely associated with the older scapes. I think they are growing from the stem cormlets that this and a number of other tall Calochortus species typically produce, just below the soil surface. The leaves of these stems are still green as well. I think this species has been offered in commerce at times. Possibly the extended flowering has something to do with the very cool conditions we've had in the past two months; people were calling last month "Junuary." Most of the other Calochortus are in seed, not yet ripe, but if I happen to break them off they will continue to ripen just lying on the ground. Like some other western American geophytes, the scapes are barely attached at all to the corms at this point in their growth cycle. Three species are in flower now: Calochortus plummerae, Calochortus weedii, and Calochortus clavatus. Jane McGary, Portland, Oregon _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…