>Hi Joe: > My name is Alberto Castillo and I have a Botanical Garden in > Argentina in which we preserve many South American bulbous plants by > FREELY distributing the seed. I am in the process of recovering from a > serious heart surgery last April that proved almost fatal. Fortunately > most of the plants have survived and we are always interested in adding > more species. As you know, we must add wild origin material preferrably, > hence your offering of Liatris seed sounds most exciting. We have grown a > few species in the past and they were interesting. Their organ seems to > be rather a tuber in which the buds are inserted although of course we > would not risk cutting a precious plant to find out. ! Therefore please > remember me in case these and other Texan geophytes become available. We > can import bulbs or plants without paper work. The ideal number is 25 > plants but a more practical one is three (we increase their number from > seed sowing in due course). We used to grow a fantastic Texan section > years ago and they were very easy here. >More soon. >Sincerely >Alberto Hi Alberto, nice to "meet" you. I think that's a great policy your Botanical Garden has! I wish more organizations shared that philosophy. I'm also glad to hear you're recovering from a nearly fatal surgery! I hope you can make an excellent recovery. I have been relatively quiet on this group, but your message has encouraged me to respond. I have a web database for identifying Iris species, and the information on South American species is very poor. I wonder if you could direct me to a source of info/photos? The site is located at http://www.badbear.com/signa/ Dennis in Cincinnati (Ohio, USA)