A walk through the bulb house this morning was enlivened by the first opening flowers of a number of Fritillaria species. Most of them are on the "dry" side, plants from semi-arid Asian and eastern Mediterranean regions. They include the following: Fritillaria raddeana Fritillaria zagrica Fritillaria eduardii Fritillaria bucharica Fritillaria obliqua Fritillaria gibbosa Fritillaria stenanthera (three forms) Fritillaria striata Fritillaria chitralensis Fritillaria arriana Fritillaria euboica Fritillaria serpentinicola Fritillaria sewertzowii Fritillaria latifolia Fritillaria caucasica Well represented is the section named for the familiar Fritillaria imperialis (not in flower here yet): raddeana, eduardii, and chitralensis. The Rhinopetalum section also tends to be early, with gibbosa, arriana, stenanthera, and bucharica. F. euboica and F. serpentinicola are Greek species sometimes included in Fritillaria carica, which is just in bud here. The earliest American species as always is F. striata from the mountains of southern California. I grew all these plants from seed, beginning with F. raddeana in 1988 (the original bulbs are still flowering, along with their seedlings). We have had two spells of severe frost lasting about a week each, one in early December and one in early February when some of these plants had emerging foliage; F. striata had leaves up during the December freeze, when the temperature dropped one night to 17 F here. F. obliqua, native to the area of Athens, was in bud during the February freeze down to 20 F, and showed no damage. This shows that the literature claiming some species to be particularly tender should probably be looked at critically. My plants went through temperatures down to 20 F (minus 6 C) regularly at my former home, where I had them in unheated cold frames. The present bulb house is unheated and covered only with a transparent roof; the sides are wire mesh. The bulbs are in raised beds of very well drained soil. Jane McGary Portland, Oregon, USA