Mary Sue has mentioned a few good bulbs for shade and here are some others: Cyclamen purpurascens is good if you can get it established, but it is the northernmost species and, I think, does not do so well on a Mediterranean climate cycle as C. hederifolium and C. coum do. Another that gardeners on the West Coast of the US should try is C. graecum. It is usually described as not very winter-hardy, but it's sun-tolerant, has wonderfully marked leaves, and has survived temperatures in the mid-20s F in my bulb frame. I'm going to put some on the rock garden this summer and see what happens. It is particularly easy to grow from seed. Others grown outdoors here are C. repandum (which likes shade) and C. cilicium. I expect C. pseudibericum, which has huge bright flowers, would do well in California gardens--and one sees C. persicum everywhere in California, so why not grow some of the typical species from seed (they're very fragrant and much more graceful than the floppy commercial forms). Leucojum aestivum and L. vernum are normally grown in sun in this part of the USA and require a retentive soil; they rarely flower for me, and never in shady areas. Calochortus albus, which is available commercially, often grows in shady spots in the wild. Among California lilies Mary Sue mentioned L. maritimum, which is extremely habitat-specific and probably hard to obtain even as seed, and L. pardalinum, which is a good doer almost anywhere and one of the few lilies that can cope with burrowing bulb-eaters, having an extensive, rhizome-like bulb with many loose scales that will renew it after attack. Some handsome cultivars of L. pardalinum are available. It needs a rich loose soil to wander in. The spectacular L. washingtonianum is a plant of coniferous forest margine, but it is extremely difficult to grow outside its native range, including elevation--it is seen primarily above the long-term winter snowline, on very steep, rocky slopes. If you happen to have deciduous shade, many of the larger narcissus will do well there, especially the cyclamineus hybrids that flower early. I started planting daffodils in the woods because I heard it would help protect them from bulb fly, and I have many clumps still flowering after 12-15 years with little or no attention. Jamie mentioned Hyacinthoides campanulata (Spanish bluebell) as "less invasive" than English bluebell (H. non-scripta), but most of us in the US West find just the opposite. I' ve heard that some varieties sold through Dutch bulb catalogues may be hybrids between the two species. H. non-scripta seems better adapted to shade. Trilliums hardly need be mentioned, and for the Mediterranean climates that are our concern, the western American ones do much better than the more numerous eastern species and the rare-in-cultivation East Asian ones. No shady spot in a bulb-lover's garden should be without snowdrops (Galanthus), and it is worth exploring the genus beyond G. nivalis to find species that do better in warmer climates. Erythroniums: mostly woodlanders, and the western species are adapted to dry summers, except for the alpine E. montanum. They are difficult to obtain as bulbs because the bulbs don't store and ship well, but quite easy to grow from seed, flowering in about 4 years. The most popular in gardens are E. tuolumnense, a rapid multiplier, and E. revolutum, bright pink, but E. helenae and E. multiscapoideum are good in warmer areas too. E. revolutum is a plant of cool conditions in Oregon's coastal mountains. E. hendersonii, lavender, is from the Siskiyous and better adapted to dry periods. In the garden many erythroniums hybridize among themselves. Many fritillarias are said to grow in woodland and scrub, so if you have a lot of some species (F. affinis is my candidate) you could try them there. All, however, are vulnerable to the slugs and snails likely to be hiding in the shade. Muscari: the invasive species (M. armeniacum, M. azureum) are best treated as a ground cover under trees and shrubs, where their floppy foliage will not cause problems. You can interplant them with Ajuga or some similar controllable groundcover to help conceal the dying leaves of the Muscari. And if you have a BIG space in shade, put in some Cardiocrinum giganteum, unless you feel about it as the great bulb grower Faith Mackaness did. I always remember her telling me, in her old-fashioned Louisiana accent, "I have always thought it is rathah VULGAH." And even bigger, veratrums (though often seen on open alpine slopes) also do well in shade. I have V. californicum in fairly deep shade here, and it flowers regularly. It is not grown for the flowers, but for the handsome "architectural" foliage. These are just a few of the bulbs that do well in shade in my garden, where summers are cool though dry. I have a sprinkler system on the woodland "garden" (really a mess) for the sake of the rhododendrons. In hotter climates, even more species should prefer shady situations. Jane McGary Northwestern Oregon, USA