Thanks for that, Roger. If I'm lucky enough to get more buds, I'll try it. The plant I have came from someone for whom it never bloomed. He dug it and distributed the pieces at a local plant exchange. If it has a cultivar name, we don't know it. He gave all of his away, and now that he's seen the bloom on my plant regrets that (although he has a standing invitation to drop by and dig a piece). The flower shown on the wiki caught me by surprise; I was literally packing my bags Friday morning for a few days away from home after Thanksgiving when I went out into the garden for something and spotted the patch of blue (the iris grows tangled up with other plants, largely shaded by some of them). I unpacked the camera, realized that I could not get a good image with the bloom in situ, and decided to pick it. I checked it for fragrance and noticed nothing. I took several photos, put the bloom in a vase on the kitchen table, hopped in the car and returned several days later to find, of course, a thoroughly deliquesced blob. I'm not the only one growing Iris unguicularis here in the greater Washington, D.C. area. One friend has several forms. And some are growing I. lazica, too. Yesterday I asked if anyone was growing I. cretensis, but so far no one locally has responded (I just received John L's posting on that form). The plants of I. unguicularis seem hardy enough, but getting them to mature flowers outside is another matter. Decades ago I grew this plant, and although it sometimes produced the beginnings of flower buds, it never successfully matured outside a bloom or a bud worth cutting. Jim Waddick's email just arrived, so I'll try to respond to his queries, too. I have two clumps here; one grows in a cold frame out in the open. This plant in the cold frame has not yet bloomed, although it is growing vigorously. The plant in the wiki image grows right against the house wall on the SW side of the house. The soil is the local stuff with no amendments - basically a loamy clay, probably acidic although so close to the wall there may be leaching from the lime in the mortar. This plant does not get sun until late morning at earliest. And it grows under a semi-deciduous azalea and a take-over-the-world Passiflora incarnata. I think I can describe those as less than ideal conditions. Ordinarily this site is in the rain shadow of the eaves, but there is a leaky gutter there and so the area gets flooded whenever it rains. I'm as surprised as anyone that of the two plants, it's this one which bloomed. Jim McKenney jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7 My Virtual Maryland Garden http://www.jimmckenney.com/ Webmaster Potomac Valley Chapter, NARGS Editor PVC Bulletin http://www.pvcnargs.org/ Webmaster Potomac Lily Society http://www.potomaclilysociety.org/