Hi Alani, Right, including Hymenocallis, to name one of my favorites! I would hypothesize that botany professors and their PhD students need to delimit their areas of specialization to something doable in 4 or 5 years, hence Habitat Zones. People writing Floras also need to set practical limits to the geography they cover. I wish FNA covered Mexican geophytes. Genera may be widely distributed, but the species seem to be much less so. I am interested in Hymenocallis species and Hippeastrum species from wherever they grow. I limit my interest in African Amaryllidaceae more or less to what is found in the Republic of South Africa and Namibia. Even then, it takes 4 greenhouses to hold what I am interested in. Jim S. At 05:19 PM 3/25/2010 -0400, you wrote: >"The Flora of North America seems to stop at the Mexico-USA border. >Where are all our experts when you need one?" > > >Which part of the North American flora stops at the Mexican United States? >There are many genera that bridge that artificial line. Oaks, pines, maples, >magnolias, Mahonia, all occur on both sides and in some cases the same >species and there are plenty of others that don't range widely in the >northern United States but occur throughout the southeast and southwest U.S. >If I have the correct greatest diversity of Pinus and Quercus species in the >world is found in Mexico. Another interesting twist, the cycad genus, >*Ceratozamia >*represented by several species in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize is >represent in fossil form from Alaska. Seems to me there is a fairly amount >of moving around. > >Alani Davis ************************************************* Jim Shields USDA Zone 5 Shields Gardens, Ltd. P.O. Box 92 WWW: http://www.shieldsgardens.com/ Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA Tel. ++1-317-867-3344 or toll-free 1-866-449-3344 in USA