Hi Diane and all Very good points, and the reason why we invest several years in researching an area before we travel there to collect plants. For new introductions to the Chicago Botanic Garden we have focused on areas with similar climatic patterns and daylengths. Basically we've created a Geographic Information System that permits us to identify these locations, if we can get good climatic data from the country or region of interest. The atlases produced for the former Soviet republics are very detailed and permit us to identify those regions with the greatest climatic similarities. Of course, on the flip side of the coin, these are also the regions where we are most likely to encounter plants that are so well adapted they 'jump the fence' into the natural habitats. This is why all of our new introductions go through years of evaluation before they are added to the public displays. The atlases for the former Soviet republics, particularly the Central Asian and Caucasus are very difficult to find, but well worth the search. Is there a similar atlas for Argentina? I've been searching for a couple of years (off and on) with no results. Boyce Tankersley btankers@chicagobotanic.org