Aren't there other book collectors in this group? I second Ernie's choice of Jack Elliott's book. I love that book and find myself rereading it every year when the seed lists arrive. I too miss Jack's participation. He was so generous with his knowledge and experiences of success and failure and there was always the delight and love of flowers shinning through. I have many books including a lot of the ones I summarized that had been mentioned on the PBS list in the past. But there are others not mentioned that I would like to add. I especially like the books that are written by people who actually grow the plants and are therefore sharing their experiences. Bulbs for New Zealand Gardeners & Collectors by Jack Hobbs and Terry Hatch is one such book. Terry told me he had grown all the plants he talked about. Although this book is out of print with the marvel of the Internet we have found copies in New Zealand to share with friends. This is a good book for California growers of bulbs since it concentrates on some of the bulbs that are more easily grown in areas that don't get so cold. It gives cultural information, describes genus and species, sometimes describing the species, sometimes telling about habitat and their luck with growing. Another book written in 1936 but republished in 1990 is Adventures with Hardy Bulbs by Louise Beebe Wilder. This one doesn't have pictures, but it is really fun to read. Wilder lived in New York City so her experiences would be really different than Hobbs and Hatch. My husband located a copy of Sima Eliovson's Bulbs for the Gardener in the Southern Hemisphere written in 1967. She is South African, but the bulbs she talks about are world wide. She doesn't describe as many species of each genus, but gives interesting cultural information. For example about Veltheimia which we discussed yesterday she says, "Plant the large bulbs at the end of summer or early in autumn in light soil containing plenty of leaf-mould. The neck of the bulb should be at soil level or slightly above it. Choose a shady situation under trees as the Forest Lily likes shade and does not resent competition from tree roots." and so on I am very fond of Cyclamen and have appreciated Cyclamen by Christopher Grey-Wilson. In addition to the Barbara Jeppe book my husband one Christmas presented me with a copy of Niel du Plessis & Graham Duncan's Bulbous Plants of Southern Africa. Like Arnold's well worn copy of Phillips and Rix for years I would look through both of those books and dream about growing some of the plants in them. This one covers the Amaryllidaceae and other families left out of the other. Often one species will be listed in one of the books and not the other even in the genus is in both books. If you want to grow Lachenalia then you need Graham Duncan's The Lachenalia Handbook. We've already mentioned some of Brian Mathew's other books, but I have found Growing Bulbs: The Complete Practical Guide to be another good general book. It includes a lot of information about South American bulbs not readily found but often doesn't have information about a particular species I want to know about. But still I often find the answer I am looking for and he shares his experience if he has it. Finally back in those days before I became a bulb fanatic and just had a few general bulb books, I purchased an Ortho book called All About Bulbs. This revised edition was published in 1986 for $6.95. What made this book a gold mine for a beginner from California was that the editors had as consultants August De Hertogh, Stan Farwig, Vic Girard, and Wayne Roderick. The latter three had large collections of bulbs and were growing them in northern California. Many they had grown from seed and so this book told about bulbs and species never found before or since in such a book. It has been revised once again and now is back to tulips, hyacinths, narcissus and all the bulbs most people think of when they think of bulbs. These were featured too, but there were many others I had never heard of before. And what I loved was they had a map of the United States. If the map was colored in dark blue that meant the bulb could be naturalized with normal garden care in that area. If light blue, the bulb could be grown outdoors with some precautions. If uncolored the bulb would be difficult to grow as a perennial, but still maybe possible in bulb frames, greenhouses, or maybe as an annual. I don't know how accurate the maps were, but the maps for a very large number of genera for my part of California were colored dark blue or light blue so there was a whole range of possibilities open to me. Mary Sue PBS List Administrator