Chara2, Gloriosa tubers do contain plenty of colchicine, but it can be tricky getting the dosage right. According to the following review, 20 grams of tubers contains 60 milligrams of colchicine. If you do use colchicine, look for sports as well as polyploids. Sometimes chromosome doubled cells will revert to the original chromosome number by dividing again. The resulting cells probably won't be exactly like the originals. This is especially useful when working with sterile hybrids. For instance, a sterile diploid hybrid treated with colchicine can produce both tetraploid shoots, and diploid "sports" that may just as interesting. I have added this info and links to some articles on colchicine use Karl Review: Croaking on a crocus 02 February 1991 From New Scientist Print Edition. JULIE JOHNSON Toxicity of Houseplants by David G Spoerke Jr and Susan C Smolinske, CRC Press, Boca Raton, pp 244, $124.95/100 Pounds. Hours after cooking and eating a meal of sweet potatoes, a 28-year-old woman developed classic symptoms of poisoning. Four days later she was dead. She had mistakenly eaten tubers of the glory lily plant (Gloriosa superba), native to Africa and Asia but also grown as a houseplant in the US. Two years earlier, a 16-year-old girl died after eating 12 flowers from Colchicum autumnale, or autumn crocus. Just half a flower might have proved fatal. Both plants contain the poison colchicine (acetyltrimethylcolchicinic acid), which damages blood vessels and nerves, and stops cell division. A fatal dose of colchicine lies somewhere between 7 and 60 milligrams, not much considering that a dried seed of C autumnale can contain up to 3.5 milligrams, while as little as 20 grams of G superba tubers provide 60 milligrams. Here is a link that might be useful: Chemicals in Plant Breeding

Hi, Some tissue cultures may be perfect copies, but what I hate is - how can you really tell, unless you are growing a real division beside it? If you want a specific color or specific attribute and find out 5 years later that your TC isn't an accurate copy you may feel cheated. You may feel that you wasted your money. With all the problems of mislabelling of plants in general, it adds another layer of chance. Some people enjoy the fun of "mixed" packages of plants or seeds in general. Not me. I tolerated mislabeling in my early years of gardening. Now I realize that not getting the real plant (be it a particular color daylily or other kind of plant) is a terrible waste of my time. I accept a gamble when the price is low enough, or when I'm not fussy, but not very often with daylilies because I am particular about color. When I buy a german iris, a tulip, or a daylily and it doesn't turn out the color I purchased, it is generally an orange, a reddish orange, or slight pink orange. If returning them is not feasible they get given to anyone that will take them. As you can imagine orange is my least favorite in the garden. Color is mentioned because it is one of the attributes most important to me in a daylily. I think you just have to take daylily TC's for what they are at this point - a bit of a lottery ticket like plants from the scratch and dent section, and decide whether you want to take that chance. If not you can usually find good deals from growers that guarantee they are not TC's, and will guarantee them true to name and color. I suppose this is really a better alternative for the future of keeping daylily varieties true for the future. Mary

Manuel, it isn't "down". They had a medical situation about six weeks ago and had to suspend business. They hope to have an auction beginning this coming weekend and adding new plant material. My comment is directed at anyone who wants to join the group order. Things move quickly... 24 ~ 36 hours and the order will be placed. If you haven't looked over their plants material, it could be an overwhelming task at the last moment. Please keep in mind: 1. NO CITES PLANTS, 2. You'll want an order sheet from me, 3. Payment using Paypal® and their USD/€ conversion with Friends/Family IN EUROS., 4. For the most part we usually only order Haworthia. If you don't have a Paypal® account and/or don't have Euros as a currency, you'll have to make some adjustments. These aren't my rules; they are rules made by STC and/or Paypal®.

For why you'd want to know, there are all kinds of developmental and physiological problems that are possible to show up in tissue cultured plants. The process is far from perfect. It's not always random, some genera seem more susceptible than others. So some buyers prefer divisions or seed-grown plants instead of TC, or at least to know if they are accepting the risk when plunking down hundreds or thousands of dollars on a rare plant. Personally I don't care. On how to tell if it's TC, it is almost impossible from just looking at a mature plant, but there are some clues you can sometimes piece together. Age is first. TC plants are often sold younger. Volume/availability is next. Sellers will often have a very high number available of TC plants available when only last year they were rare and hard to get. Consistency is an important clue. Since they are all DNA clones and started younger than cuttings, they will usually have a very even, consistent look to whole giant table of small clones. Price is another clue. If you look at last year's price for a mature plant being sky-high, but now there are tons of low-cost young plants available this year, chances are that it's TC. Also, a very high percentage overall now days of perennials and houseplants (other than cheap plants and annuals which are usually seed sown); and if they have a fancy color tag, then there is a very good chance it's TC. None of those are absolute, but putting them together you can sometimes get a good picture. You can also just ask your reseller if they are TC or if they will tell you who is the supplier.