I hope the following might be of some interests in relation to this North America lily species. Freshly wild collected seeds arrived here late autumn, early winter two years ago, and were sown immediately into a proprietary John Innes Seed Compost with added peat in the top layer and were then covered lightly with a fine grit and left to over winter outside with no protection. From time to time the pots filled up with snow or were rained on lightly to heavily; that particular winter saw temperatures go as low as -22 C, can't remember how to convert that to Fahrenheit as it being so long since we converted here in Scotland to Centigrade, anyway - 22C is NOT warm but as all research is published in Metric and centigrade we were glad to see the back of F. Come the spring, here that is early May up they popped and then were shifted into our big polytunnel with the other lilies from that autumn's sowing and have never looked back. Given a little diluted seaweed liquid fertiliser from time to time and with luck they will flower this year around June maybe. During this period they had to deal with - 20 C on 18th December and several hard frosts subsequently but none that low... YET as winter isn't finished with us by a long margin. For a reference point on climate, it seems that we are in a very rough sense around the USDA Zone 6 equivalent but it doesn't really compare accurately as apart from everything else we are at nearly 58 degrees north, same as Churchill in central Hudson's Bay, minus the Polar Bears of course , we are clean out of polar bears now. It might interest to the PBS that I am running germination trials on Lily seed this year, and next year. Currently I have 55 species and subspecies of lily in the first trail, roughly half of the known described species, and hopefully most of the remainder will be trialled next year while including 'markers' from this year's species to provide some degree of comparability. Essentially half the species were sown late autumn - early winter and a complete replicate will then be sown this coming April. Essentially I am trying to establish whether [a] any particular species is better sown in the autumn or in the spring; and, [b] I believe that, as with woody plants, monocots will be induced into growth by a heat sum and I am sure knowing what it is will be useful. In the case of trees and shrubs from the temperate and boreal regions it seems the trigger to initiate growth is at 8 degrees Celsius/day times 'X' days of 8 degrees. The follow up to this will be to record, under conditions here, how many years from germination to first flowering, onset of flowering dates, and duration of flowering followed by onset of senescence. If anyone has any advice and suggestions please feel free to put me right. regards, Iain Auchgourish Botanic Garden & Arboretum