Thanks to all of you who helped explain all the terms it is possible to use instead of a question mark when you don't know what something is. It gives us a lot more choices to use on our tags while indicating that we aren't quite sure what it is. It seems so much better to associate the unknown with something that it might be related to than have it be completely a mystery. I think there are probably members of our list who never understood these terms who might not have wanted to ask about them and now know. I've been using aff. for the Romulea species that I grew from seed exchange seed misnamed Romulea linaresii and Romulea ramiflora . Most people consider these plants to be a form of Romulea bulbocodium even though some books describe that species as having a stigma that overtops the stamens and these flowers have short stigmas about the same height as the stamens. It sounds like perhaps I could have been using Romulea cf. bulbocodium instead of Romulea aff. bulbocodium. Since I'm not a taxonomist or a botanist, just a gardener, I am happy that there are terms I can use in a situation like this one. The plant in question is a real winner in my garden, blooming reliably every year and increasing nicely so I can plant it in different places and share with others. For years I wondered about sp. nov. used in so many books. I decided it must be a term used for a new species that someone was researching, but perhaps someone would like to explain what it means as well. Mary Sue