David Fenwick wrote: >Just a note to say that there are a few inferior forms circulating as His >Majesty, but I've not noticed this on the corms I have here, which are true >to type. I do have one double Crocosmia though, and three or forms have >exsisted in the past and there are also forms which have been bred which one >could call semi-double. Dave, I think I led you in the wrong direction here! Instead of having extra perianth segments, my plants often produced flowers with only four. Otherwise, I think the stock was true to name; the flowers looked like those seen in color illustrations in catalogs from the twenties and thirties of the last century. I checked the photograph (it was taken in 1986) and it shows a comparatively large-flowered Crocosmia with big orange-red flowers which have a smudge of yellow at the base of the tepal. The flowers had the shape of partially recurved martagon lilies and were carried so that the flowers faced down and out. I've often wondered if these deformed flowers were the result of tissue culture propagation. I have stock of the handsome Crocus vernus Vanguard acquired at about the same time and the Crocus stock shows a similar problem: the plants often produce flowers with only four or five perianth segments. And now that I've got your attention, perhaps you can tell me: which name is proper, Crocosmia masonorum or Crocosmia masoniorum? My usual sources have failed me on this one. I'll get a good laugh if the name has been changed to something entirely different! Jim McKenney jimmckenney@starpower.net Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where the hummers love the crocosmias but so unfortunately do the voles. >