Thanks to David Stephens for pointing out many good crocuses in the new issue of our newsletter, "The Bulb Garden." There are some good ideas here for southern gardens where the typical Dutch crocuses do not flourish. I have found that certain species David recommends do not survive Pacific Northwest winters outdoors: C. goulimyi, C. laevigatus, C. nudiflorus, C. tournefortii, all autumn=flowering species from low elevations near the Mediterranean. However, they all flourish in my bulb frame, where C. nudiflorus is just opening the first crocuses of the year. (Like school, the bulb-grower's year begins in September.) Warm-climate gardeners might find C. vernus (the ancestor of the big Dutch commercial varieties) unsuited to their climate. It likes cool conditions and summer moisture. A couple of the species David mentions are almost impossible to obtain as bulbs, and rarely available as seed: C. boryi and C. kosaninii. Neither is spectacular, so you're not missing much unless you're a dedicated collector. I would add two species to the spring-flowering list instead: C. corsicus and C. minimus. These very closely related species do well in the open garden here despite their lowland origins -- possibly the warm, dry West Coast summers are more to their liking than those of the UK. They're showy, too. I thought C. biflorus was missing (!) but now I see that its name has just been shuffled to the right in the list format. The "two species" mentioned after it are biflorus and chrysanthus; a lot of the crocuses sold as "chrysanthus" are in fact biflorus or hybrids of the two. Jane McGary NW Oregon, USA