Hello Stan, Until yesterday, I worked only a couple miles from the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge MA http://www.mountauburn.org/ and I would occassionally drive over to see the fantastic grounds and flora there. This is a marvelous historic cemetery of grand size that is better thought of as a remarkable arboretum, not just a cemetery. There are two mature specimens of Davidia involucrata ssp. vilmoriniana growing there. Sometimes, when I visit the cemetery on our company's educational "botanical walks" (from the Landscape Architectural group) one can just pick up fallen seed... I have some nice seedlings of the hardy form of Silk Tree or Albizia julibrissin germinated from pods collected mid-winter last year. Since yesterday was my last day (been laid after 20+ years with my company), I no longer will be trekking in 40 miles one way to reach the area... but I could make a trip because there are other specialty attractions in the area to make a day of it, and could pick up some fallen seeds. The seeds are rather enormous, as big as walnuts. I can't remember precisely what time of year it was last year that I visited and picked up some seed, but not knowing if each represented 1 seed, or whether it would need to be dried off and possibly there were seeds inside, I never did sow them... seems to me, they are but one seed each. Wouldn't mind going back to get fresh seeds for myself too, as this is simply a fantastic smallish tree with unbelievable flowers that earn it's knickname of hankerchief tree or dove tree. To make this post more on topic, there are some good geophytes grown on the grounds too, mostly for spring viewing but there are colchicums too. We can take this discussion off-line (for the plant trading part) but thought it was worth discussing this fine monotypic tree; it would certainly be a great overstory tree for the likes of some of the Lycoris species and cultivars that have featured so prominently on PBS recently. Mark McDonough Massachusetts, near the New Hampshire border, USDA Zone 5 antennaria@charter.net ---- pbs-request@lists.ibiblio.org wrote: ============= Send pbs mailing list submissions to pbs@lists.ibiblio.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to pbs-request@lists.ibiblio.org You can reach the person managing the list at pbs-owner@lists.ibiblio.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of pbs digest..." List-Post:<mailto:pbs@lists.ibiblio.org List-Archive:<http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php Today's Topics: 1. Off topic: Davidia seed request (stan tyson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:41:27 -0500 From: stan tyson <stantyson@msn.com> Subject: [pbs] Off topic: Davidia seed request To: <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> Message-ID: <SNT125-W3643E7F510566AECD59D0B2BE0@phx.gbl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Hi all! I am looking for about 25 fresh seeds of Davidia. Does anyone lon the list have access to fresh seed? I have seed of Magnolia to trade and a host of bulbs! Stan Tyson Rivendell Botanic Garden Central illinois Zone 5 stantyson@msn.com ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php End of pbs Digest, Vol 81, Issue 32 ***********************************