Dear All, Before it started raining last Friday we had some lovely weather in northern California and I had time to admire some of my Romuleas that were blooming. Since then we have been having a lot of rain, heavy enough the last two days that roads are starting to flood. I've added some pictures of mine and Audrey Cain's to the wiki: http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… Last year I posted a lovely picture Bob took of Romulea komsbergensis from seed from Dirk Wallace. Lauw wrote that he thought the identification was wrong because Romulea komsbergensis usually has a brown center and in my plants this was reduced to more of a brown line. This year I have poured over my books (I have three publications just for South African Romuleas) and the keys. I had seed started the same time from IBSA of the same species and there are many similarities and a few differences as well. This second year of blooming they seem much more alike than different although the backs are definitely different (but still fitting within the description of this species) and one of them has a style that divides beyond the anthers and one that divides closer to the anthers. In the most recent monograph by Manning and Goldblatt it was noted that there were populations found that differed in style lengths from the previous population described as deep pink with a pale cup and each tepal marked with a dark central band outlined with a violet zone on the other margin with anthers with reddish brown pollen. Ah, for those earlier days when I didn't really care what it was and just enjoyed the flowers! I have added pictures from this year's flowers showing the very beautiful and different backs of the two clones and one of a bee that I watched rolling around in the flowers. It reminded me of my dog when she seems really happy and rolls on her bag moving around and rubbing it. Romulea diversiformis is blooming this time of the year and I added another picture of it just so you can see the form of the leaves a little better. Audrey has sent me pictures which I added to the South African wiki page under Romulea diversiformis x Romulea komsbergensis hybrids. She writes: "The first of the Romulea pictures came from IBSA wild collected seed, in a batch of R. diversiformis seed. The rest of the seedlings flowered typically, but this one is a R. komsbergensis X R. diversiformis hybrid. The remaining photos are the result of self-pollinating the first flower, so that they are F2 hybrids all from the same pod of seeds!" Be sure and look at the parents first and then her amazing flowers. All you have to do is to take one look at the variations and realize that it would be quite easy to grow hybrids that don't exactly fit the keys even if we didn't manipulate the pollination if more than one flower was blooming at the same time and nature did the job. Finally I added another picture of Romulea luteoflora taken one day when there were quite a few of the wonderful yellow and black flowers open at the same time. My contribution to this rainy dreary day. Mary Sue Mary Sue Ittner California's North Coast Wet mild winters with occasional frost Dry mild summers