Dear All, I've really enjoyed this topic a lot with images of bulbs seen in the wild and remembrances of special people and the bulbs connected with them. Paul's post resonated with me. I too have been appreciative of bulbs and seeds shared with me and they are forever connected with the person who shared them. Many of those people are on this list and it would take a lot of space to list them all. A few of my favorites that bring me pleasure every year are the Leucocorynes and Nothoscordums from Bill Dijk, the Lachenalias from Mark Mazer and Dell, the Veltheimias from Doug Westfall, the Pasithea from Jim Forrest, and the Sandersonias and a few other choice items from Dirk Wallace. There are two people who had special importance in getting me passionate about bulbs. One of them was Wayne Roderick. He is a familiar name to a lot of you as he has written a number of articles in the NARGS bulletin and has lectured frequently. He is responsible for introducing a lot of people to California's bulbs since he has supplied the Dutch with specimens that they have reproduced. I have heard him lecture quite a number of times and have been in his company a number of times too when we have attended the same events. When I moved to my present location, I watched my perennials dwindle away because they could not compete with redwood roots. I overheard Wayne telling someone else that he had turned to bulbs for this very reason. He advertises blooms every month of the year without watering. Twice a year he opens his garden to visitors. Once a number of us gathered together to see his bulbs at his spring open house. The one that caught my attention was Tropaeolum tricolor that was scampering on a support. He later gave extras to California Horticultural Society and I eventually inherited some from my friend Jana. So it is my memory bulb for Wayne although our local rare and endangered Fritillaria called biflora biflora in Jepson, but F. roderickii but some of us in resistance is another. Finally in 1989 I attended a Plantsman's conference at UC Berkeley that had an even bigger impact. One of the speakers was Stan Farwig who with his partner Vic Girard had a fantastic collection of bulbs that they grew in pots in their backyard, mostly grown from seed. The year is significant since it was a year later I think when an arctic freeze hit in December that wiped out most of their collection (California natives excepted.) They gave up then and gave what was left of their bulbs to UC Santa Cruz where I understand from Jane McGary they have been lost because of predators. Stan's talk was on Bulbs of the Southern Hemisphere and I started checking the ones I wanted to grow and when there were too many checks, double checking for emphasis. And sometimes I just ended up double checking the entire genus. I like to drag out that plant list from time to time and see how many of the ones I have checked I have finally gotten to bloom. Stan also had a hand out that day called, "A non-concise guide to the cultivation of bulbs." I thought it was brilliant and have reread it often. In it he wrote about not giving up on seed pots if they had not germinated saying that seed of Juno iris had taken four years to germinate. He followed that with this statement, "Less you find that too depressing, let me recount the remarkable performance of one of the loveliest and most neglected of our native bulbs, Alophia drummondii. Seed of it was sown in the third week of February, germination took place in the second week of March and it yielded its first flower on July 5th." Because this is a bulb from Texas and I lived there for a number of years, after reading that statement I wanted to grow this plant and I started requesting seed whenever I saw it listed. So from 1990 on I started seed hoping that within a few months I'd have blooms. I got blooms, but never that quickly and never of Alophia drummondii. What I got was almost always Herbertia lahue. Then in the NARGS seed exchange I saw wild collected seed being offered and thought maybe the person who collected it knew what it was so the seed could have been labeled correctly. I was excited when I opened my order and found I had received it. I couldn't find the article from Stan and couldn't remember when to start it, so I split the package and started some then and some in the fall. The first sown 2/15/02 germinated 5/31/02 and the second sown 10/24/03 germinated 4/4/03. Obviously I don't have the Farwig touch, but just in time for this topic the first lot has bloomed and it is indeed Alophia drummondii. I hope I can keep it going as it will become my memory plant for Stan Farwig whose enthusiasm and beautiful pictures started me on the path to appreciating and growing so many Southern Hemisphere bulbs. If anyone wants to see what this bulb really looks like I made a wiki page: http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… Mary Sue Mary Sue Ittner California's North Coast Wet mild winters with occasional frost Dry mild summers