I went to the symplocarpus site today and had an absolute blast...they're completely amazing plants. Not only is there wonderful color variation, but there's considerable variation in spathe shape, size, and degree of twisting. Having long been a fan of variation in Arisaema triphyllum, I should not have been surprised by this, should I? I only found 2 spathes that were close to "immaculata", and neither was as elegant as Sean Z's specimen. That said, one was still pretty good. The other was a runt. I'm going back tomorrow with a better lens (macro, not zoom) to see if I can improve on my pics, and then I'll put a gallery together somewhere. Twisting myself into improbable poses (standing in muck and trying to avoid Rosa multiflora canes) is not conducive to careful focusing. I was very happy to discover that my old rubber boots didn't leak *much*....I am squeamish about swamps as it is, and having the ooze come in is not in my comfort zone. But one way or another, I should have some photos up soon. To those who requested seed directly: I will send what I can to the seed ex, but I'm not interested in custom collecting. Unfortunately, there is no realistic was to mark different colored spathes and go back for seed. I don't know who owns the property, I'm not sufficiently motivated to find out, and slogging through that area when the plants are in leaf will be a nasty task indeed. I'll nab such seeds as I can find near the edge, and that will have to be enough. Sorry! Ellen On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 12:32 PM, Sean Zera <zera@umich.edu> wrote: > *Symplocarpus* is a neat plant. It should be grown for the spectacular > leaves alone, if you have the right spot. Here are some photos of the more > unusal ones I've found in Michigan. > > Solid yellow spathe, faintly marked in red. I've not gone looking to see if > this is consistent from year to year. > http://flickr.com/photos/58877781@N00/… > > Variegated leaves! I collected this with permisson from a dead black ash > swamp where it was likely to be destroyed by pipeline maintenance. > Hopefully it survived last year's drought - I should go check and see if > it's up. > http://flickr.com/photos/58877781@N00/… > > Sean Z > Zone 6a > SE Michigan > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ > -- Ellen Hornig 212 Grafton St Shrewsbury MA 01545 508-925-5147