Jim wrote, >Many years ago, someone published a note in (I think) one of the quarterly >bulletins of the North American Rock Garden Society about the cultivation of >some autumn-blooming crocus in Cornell, New York. The article is "Fall Crocuses" by W. J. Hamilton, Jr., of Ithaca (right university, Jim, wrong town name), New York. It appeared the Bulletin of the ARGS 36(2):71-78, Spring 1978. It's quite a good article -- perhaps I should reprint it, and I may start doing that if I get desperate enough for copy for the present incarnation of this periodical, which I edit. I hope someone who has a good healthy population of C. sativus will trade me some next summer. I had good ones when I started this garden in 1984, but rodents ate them, and the replacements I purchased dwindled despite informed cultivation, suggesting that they were virused. Also interesting was Angelo's description of wild populations of Crocus thomasii. Like most others, I grow only the light lavender form, which sets seed enthusiastically and does well in my rock garden as well as in the bulb frame. Other interesting fall crocuses (in addition to the Sativi series) in flower now include C. nudiflorus, C. longiflorus, C. biflorus ssp. melantherus (unusual fall-blooming biflorus subspecies), the showy C. robertianus, C. tournefortii (which forgets to close its flowers at night), various kinds of C. serotinus, C. mathewi, C. boryi, C. hermoneus, some lovely white forms of C. goulimyi, C. speciosus, and C. pulchellus. The last-named has naturalized a little in the rough pasture grass near the bulb frame, presumably sown by ants; I never knew it was there until I started having the field mown in fall as well as late spring. C. ochroleucus has made its first appearance in a warm spot and will continue into December, when C. laevigatus (somehow surviving in the open, too) will flower. Looking at that list, I realize that the depredations by rodents my crocus collection suffered last year seem to have concentrated on spring-flowering species--perhaps because the mouse assault started in December, when the fall crocuses mostly had their leaves up and thus had smaller, less succulent corms at that stage of their annual cycle. As for storing saffron, I think that (like many other seasonings) it has to be kept in a dark, airtight container to preserve its virtue. I don't like the taste of it so haven't harvested it much; to color food golden yellow, I usually use turmeric or the Latin American spice annatto. Jane McGary Northwestern Oregon, USA