Last night, I ran across another reference to Crinum culture along the Hudson River: Neltje Blanchan, in her The American Flower Garden, published in 1909, stated that Crinum x powellii is "Hardy at New York if well covered in winter". I assume that means hardy in the New York City area. Isn't it curious that although this plant has been grown in that area for over a century (I assume that Blanchan's statement is based on several years' worth of experience), it's still a "new" plant to so many gardeners. It's odd how the gardening world works. Garden hellebores were evidently well known in the major northeast gardening centers a century ago - and the forms listed back then were sometimes named cultivars. Yet as far as the gardening world is concerned, hellebores were "discovered" only about fifteen years ago. Hardy cyclamen, Iris rosenbachiana and Iris tingitana were grown here in the Washington,D.C. area seventy-five years ago; but there is nothing that I am aware of in local garden lore or practice which acknowledges this. Jim McKenney Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where we're about to enter that lull between the last of the lilies and the first of the Lycoris squamigera.