Jim. I don''t know if my suggestion is any better--merely alternative--but whatever she saw is likely to be still available at similar elevations (~4000) feet on the same side of the Elburz range ( Albarz). The temperatures are similar to the Chicago zone (5a) but with less precipitation in summer. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim McKenney" <jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com> To: "'Pacific Bulb Society'" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> Sent: Friday, March 05, 2010 1:58 PM Subject: Re: [pbs] yellow squills in Passenger to Teheran > Ah, Boyce, that could be it. The old musk hyacinth is not exactly yellow, > but it is sort of yellowish sometimes. This is the plant variously known > as > Muscari moschatum, M. ambrosiacum and M. muscarimi among other names. And > it > looks a lot more like a squill than my guess, a daffodil, does. > > Muscari macrocarpum, the truly yellow musk hyacinth, has a more western > distribution (the Aegean) and does not grow wild in the area in question. > > One thing bothers me about this candidate: surely Sackville-West knew the > musk hyacinth? The plant had by then been grown in England for three > hundred > years, and was readily available in commerce at that time (it disappeared > from general commerce after the Second World War and was a great rarity > when > I was a kid; it did not reappear - in the guise of M. ambrosiacum - until > decades later). > > Can anyone come up with a better suggestion? > > Jim McKenney > > > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/