Jane McGary wrote: “Some colchicums, however, are stoloniferous and it's rather hard to see how they form their offsets, because when you turn them out, they are just a pile of large and small worm-shaped corms that aren't connected one to another. They must form new ones at the end of annual roots that are withered by the time they're ready to lift. It can be hard at first to figure out how to plant this kind, but if you look closely, you'll see a little cone or topknot where the next year's leaves and flowers will eventually come up, and this goes on top, with the corm lengthwise on the soil.” It trying to understand this mode of growth in some colchicums, it helps to consider what happens in their relatives, the members of the genus Gloriosa. The corms of Gloriosa look just like the corms of some of these stoloniferous colchicums, but nothing at all like typical colchicum corms. In the case of Gloriosa, the only thing to watch out for in planting the corms is to be sure the growing tip in beneath the soil (or in contact with the soil if the corm is not buried). They will grow well if the corms are placed horizontally under the soil, they will grow just as well if the corms are inserted vertically into the soil (as long as the growing tip is down in the soil). They will grow well if most of the corm is left protruding from the soil into the air – as long as the growing tip is touching the soil. In a humid environment, it is not even necessary to cover the growing tip: corms lying on the surface will produce roots which will work their way down to the soil. I have not tried this with those colchicums which produce vermiform (long) corms, but I would expect them to react the same way. These long corms also provide a good example of how what is happening in the real world does not always respect our well defined concepts. What are these storage structures seen in Gloriosa and some colchicums? Are they stolons or are they corms? Are they corms which form along stolons? My take on this is that they are corms which form stoloniferously (a stolon is sometimes defined as a horizontal growth from the base of a plant – that’s the concept I’m evoking here). The metamorphosis from stolon to corm occurs when the corm-to-be becomes detached from the other parts of the plant (using Dylan’s concept of modularity as the defining event). But given the life cycle of the plants in question, it’s not so much a question of the incipient corm becoming detached from the rest of the plant; it’s more a matter of the rest of the plant (at least the older parts which formed the base from which the stolon emerged) dying and leaving the stolon/corm detached from the base. Incidentally, Gloriosa corms as purchased are actually half corms: the corms, as they form in the ground, are typically V shaped. The bottom of the V is where the now dead annual sprout was attached. The two arms of the V are usually broken apart at the bottom of the V (where the old sprout was attached) by the growers and sold separately. The sprout for future growth is at the tip opposite the place where the now-dead annual stem was attached. In my experience, the Gloriosa corms generally have two branches. If you examine typical colchicum corms, you’ll see that they too have two “branches” – the “branches” on colchicum corms are traditionally called “feet” and usually one is much larger than the other and projects sideways from the corm mass while the other is often little more than a bump on the opposite side of the corm. I’ve seen long-corm colchicums with three branches which are otherwise dead ringers for yearling Gloriosa corms. Jim McKenney jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, 39.03871º North, 77.09829º West, USDA zone 7 My Virtual Maryland Garden http://www.jimmckenney.com/ BLOG! http://mcwort.blogspot.com/ Webmaster Potomac Valley Chapter, NARGS Editor PVC Bulletin http://www.pvcnargs.org/ Webmaster Potomac Lily Society http://www.potomaclilysociety.org/