Hi all, The first Lycoris are in bloom here -- Lycoris sprengeri. I have a couple of scapes up on LL. longituba, but no flowers open on them yet. L. chinensis should not be far behind. Other than this, things are pretty quiet in my garden just now. I do have a couple scapes in bloom on Crinum variabile (in the ground) and a scape is up on Crinum lineare (in a 5-gal. container). I have not seen any signs of scapes on any Hymenocallis occidentalis so far this season. Other Hymenocallis in pots have bloomed well this year -- durangoensis, liriosme, henryae, palmeri, latifolia, maximilianii, rotata, eucharidifolia. Even had one scape and blooms on harrisiana! H. harrisiana almost never blooms for me. They have not been so generous at setting seed this year, unfortunately. My Leptochiton quitoense seem to be dwindling away. Only had one flower and no seeds on quitoense this year. A question for our taxonomists: What is the gender of Leptochiton? I assume it is neuter, but I don't really know. The ending -on in Greek usually equates to the neuter ending -um in Latin, but is that always true? Nerine krigei has been blooming, and now we have one flower open on Nerine laticoma. I've been trying to set seed on krigei using stored pollen from N. bowdenii (Aad Koen's hardy clone). It looks like I may have gotten one or two seeds at least. NN. krigei and filifolia cross readily; the plants from [filifolia X krigei] have twisted leaves like the pollen parent (krigei). Maybe I'll try to cross laticoma and krigei. I want to try [bowdenii X laticoma] or the reverse, as well. Since bowdenii does not bloom until November, I'll have to store the pollen of laticoma to make that cross. Regards, Jim Shields in central Indiana (USA) ************************************************* Jim Shields USDA Zone 5 Shields Gardens, Ltd. P.O. Box 92 WWW: http://www.shieldsgardens.com/ Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA Tel. ++1-317-867-3344 or toll-free 1-866-449-3344 in USA