I live in California and have not had good experience with California Fritillaria. I can get the seed to germinate and have gotten some of them to blooming stage, but most years they don't bloom and eventually they are gone. I successfully grow Erythronium, Brodiaea, Triteleia, Dichelostemma, Calochortus, Scoliopus, some Lilium species, and some other California "bulbs" and have many species of each that return and bloom every year. Some of the California Fritillaria species grow in clay soils that bake in summer and that I cannot provide. But even F. affinis which is found in coastal areas in my county hasn't been a great success. It looks like I'm going to have one California Fritillaria (affinis) bloom this year (as in one plant in a pot that once had many.) There are some people like Ed Rustvold who have figured out how to do it and I think Diana Chapman has had success, but the Jepson description fits my experience. Mary Sue >I looked something up in the Jepson Manual today and noticed that >all the Fritillaria species for which an evaluation of cultivation >is given are listed as "difficult." This is not quite true, >especially if you live in California!