I've been out of town for a few days, for a short trip to "the Big City" (Portland). How nice it was to come back and find so many references to Jim Robinett ! One of his few regrets in life was starting so late with horticulture he didn't have time enough to do a lot of what he wanted to do. It's very gratifying to see that, nevertheless, his work is remembered. To Jim Shields - it is indeed Triteleia bridgesii (not Brodiaea). The DNA studies recently done by Chris Pires at Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison suggest strongly that while (as has been assumed by botanists for years) Brodiaea and Dichelostemma are closely related, Triteleia is considerably more distant, though still a "cousin." If you collect and grow on the seeds your Triteleias set, you may find some hybrids among them, which might produce interesting flowers. T. laxa routinely hybridizes with T. hyacinthina in the lower norther Sierra foothills. Hybrids between B. californica and B. purdyi are less likely. Regarding the various factors that impact bulb growth in different places, I think all the things mentioned enter the equation. Obviously it's important to know what are the moisture preferences of any given species, as well as sun -vs- shade, cool -vs- heat, pH, quality of water, and the like. Jim was fortunate enough to be growing his bulbs on local rainfall (about 30-35 inches a year where we were, almost all between October and April), and where necessary, supplemented with our own well water, from a well that was considerably deeper than any of our neighbors. It may thus have been less polluted than the water available to many people, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. I am aware of a few growers who are working seriously with microrhiza (those little critters that inhabit the soil), and I'm impressed with what I've heard about the results they are achieving. I'll finish this in a second e-mail, as I understanding some members have trouble receiving long e-mails. ---------------- Georgie Robinett