Kenneth Hixon wrote: “x dalhansonii is a grex name for all the seedlings of the cross of L. martagon dalmaticum and L. hansonii, and they do of course vary to some extent. How long seedlings of the seedlings of the original cross are entitled to the x dalhansonii name, I am unsure,” I find that statement confusing, and perhaps I misunderstand what Ken means. To begin with, does the term grex have any official status in reference to lilies? I’m not aware that it does. In my experience, lily growers have used the term, probably incorrectly, to describe those situations where tissue culture has yielded several very similar cultivars from a given cross. In the cases I have in mind, it has never been determined if the cultivars in question are actually separate clones or simply the result of a single clone splitting up very early in the tissue culture process. I've read that Jan de Graaff selected particularly fine examples of, for instance, his trumpet hybrids and used these particular plants repeatedly in certain crossing combinations as parents in his hybridization work. That usage is close to breeding greges, although as far as I know the public was never aware of the specific parents of such crosses, and de Graaff's commercial offerings were not offered as greges but rather as true breeding strains (these strains being made up presumably of several or many unspecified and very similar greges). On the other hand, for purposes of discussion, let’s assume grex is properly used with lilies. The progeny of a cross having the parents specified in the naming of the grex would be entitled to the grex name forever – or at least as long as the term grex is used in its current meaning. However, and this is where Ken’s original post confused me, he seemed to be saying that crosses of Lilium × dalhansonii inter se – i.e. [Lilium × dalhansonii] × [L. × dalhansonii] are also properly assigned to the grex called Lilium × dalhansonii. Shouldn’t such a cross have a different grex name (because such a cross does not have the parents specified in the original grex)? Jim McKenney jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where Lilium hansonii and L. candidium are blooming. 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/