Dear Jim, Your note about using botanical names made me smile. I usually use both when people in my hiking group ask me a question as most of them do not want to learn the botanical names at all. It seems like a lost cause. I also have trouble with the use of the word lily. Since so many California genera were considered belonging in the Liliaceae family in Jepson all of those were referred to by some as lilies (Calochortus to Clintonia to Triteleia for instance). I never found that very useful in talking about the plants. Some of those genera now are in different families thank goodness. And if I give something a common name I've heard when someone else knows it by another name they will correct me. I usually respond with saying if it's a common name they can call it anything they want, but other people may not know what they are talking about. Here in Northern California where Zantedeschia aethiopica has naturalized in wet places as it sounds like it has in Western Australia everyone calls them Calla lilies and would have no idea what I was talking about if I used the botanical name. I didn't realize people called them Arum lilies until on our first trip to South Africa when we asked about flowers in the Western Cape near Darling. We wanted to go see some of the reserves where there are often wonderful displays of flowers. The woman we talked to at the visitors center near there insisted we were too early and would find much more to our interest in Cape Town and should move on. We continued to explain we were interested in flowers not cities and we knew you could drive on some of the farmer's properties to look. Finally she brightened and told us when we drove out of town there was a nice patch of Arum lilies near some cows and that should be enough to satisfy us. We could stop and take a picture. We chuckled as we left intending to find those reserves on our own since we don't have to leave California to see such a sight. In an International list like ours I agree that it is safer for us to use botanical names so everyone will know what it is we are talking about. Mary Sue Mary Sue Ittner California's North Coast Wet mild winters with occasional frost Dry mild summers