In nearby northern Virginia there is a great publicly supported park known as Green Spring Park. For about twenty years now wonderful sales have occurred there in the spring and fall, sales which draw vendors from all over the east coast. The spring event is the big one, and the fall event, which was held today, is always smaller. What turns up for sale is amazing and sometimes truly astonishing. My first Welwitschia came from one of the spring sales back in the early 1990s: ten dollars exchanged hands, and it came home with me. Today I had a delightful surprise: while making the rounds of the various booths and tents, I spotted some tables heavily loaded with hellebores. The proprietors of this setup are old friends, so I made a beeline for them. As I got closer, something wonderful and rarely seen at these sales came into view: tables covered with blooming cyclamen. As soon as I saw them, I moved in, saying to my companion "those MUST be John Lonsdale's cyclamen". The words were hardly out of my mouth when I turned slightly to my right and there, beaming right beside me was John himself. And only the other day, a member of our local rock garden chapter emailed me to let me know that her Cyclamen graecum - from John years ago - was blooming. I hope John reads this because I forgot to tell him about this earlier today. Jim McKenneyMontgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, now at the height of the season for the large flowered colchicum hybrids. _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/