John Grimshaw wrote: “but Colchicum byzantinum is an ancient sterile hybrid, and 'Innocence' is presumably a sport from it: I can't imagine that a change of colour has restored fertility.” If it is true that ‘Innocence’ is a sport of Colchicum byzantinum, then that is probably true. However, I’m sure I’m not the first person to notice that ‘Innocence’ is hardly what one would expect to get in a white-flowered sport of Colchicum byzantinum. The flowers of ‘Innocence’ (to my eyes at least) do not resemble those of Colchicum byzantinum much. For one thing, they are much larger. Furthermore, there seems to be ambiguity about how this name Colchicum byzantinum is used, at least in the trade. Many of us, myself included, expect the term Colchicum byzantinum to mean the sterile clone known since at least the middle of the seventeenth century, a plant with enormous pleated leaves and comparatively small flowers with two salient characteristics – the purple or crimson tips of the stigmata and the broader, slightly incurved outer tepals. In other words, the plant John Grimshaw means. On the other hand, there is that illustration in Clusius which strongly suggests C. byzantinum except for one thing: it has seed capsules. I believe that this image has prompted some persons to regard all of the big, pleated leaved, early-flwoering non-tesstllated Colchcium as Colchiicum byzantinum. Bowles treated the sterile form as a clone and noted its close resemblance to C. cilicicum. Modern taxonomists vary in their treatment of these plants. For instance, the 15th edition of Zander, Handwörterbuch der Pflanzennamen, 1994, the standard German work on the nomenclature of domesticated plants, cites Colchicum byzantinum Ker-Gawl. and Colchicum byzantinum var. cilicicum Boiss. Thus, in this arrangement, the species byzantinum covers both the old sterile form and the presumably fertile forms known as cilicicum. When plants are offered simply as C. byzantinum, either sterile byzantinum or cilicicum might be provided with equal propriety because the name C. byzantinum in this arrangement refers not specifically to the sterile clone but to a species with at least two variants, byzantinum and cilicicum. For the same reason, someone selecting material from these plants might be tempted to call such selections Colchicum byzantinum without further designation. I have not checked the current edition of Zander to see what arrangement is now used. All of this is probably inducing terminal boredom in some of you, but it is of interest to me for practical reasons. Among the early acquisitions of nominal Colchicum byzantinum here is a plant which has been growing in my garden for perhaps forty years or more. At first glance it seems to be sterile C. byzantinum. It has the pleated, veratrum-like foliage, the crimson tip to the stigmata, early flowers bigger than those of C. autumnale but smaller and earlier than those of the big garden hybrids – it’s just the thing which might be sent out as Colchcium autumnale ‘Major’, said to be s synonym of sterile C. byzantinum. In all the years this plant has grown here, it has never set seed. I have seen this same plant in other local gardens. In fact, only earlier this week the Collections Manager of a local public collection sought my help in identifying the colchicums growing under his care – and most of the plants we saw answered to this plant. Some of these were in plantings dating back more than thirty years (in fact, to the approximate time I was acquiring my plants); that highlights another characteristic of this plant – it is very reliable under local conditions. Most colchicums are no more reliable under local conditions than tulips. However, whatever it is, it does not seem to be the old sterile Colchicum byzantinum. For one thing, the flowers are a bit bigger. And they open widely, unlike those of C. byzantinum whose outer tepals incurve a bit and are broader. This plant can be seen on the PBS wiki – it’s the one in the second group of photos, the ones taken by Mark Wilcox, a Washington D.C. gardener. I’ve distributed my plants in the past – I hope he did not get them from me! The simple solution to this dilemma is to assume that my plants are C. cilicicum, and for a while that’s what I did. But since they never set seed, I have doubts about that, too. I frankly doubt that there is a direct connection between the old sterile Colchicum byzantinum and the garden plant now being called ‘Innocence’. 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/