'Fenwick's Variety' is the most robust, free-flowering clone generally available but various other colour forms are sometimes offered including a white, faintly pink-tinged clone which is particularly attractive as a cut flower. The pure white N. flexuosa var. ah with wavy, crisped perianth segments will grow well in similar positions in the South but is generally considered to need cool glasshouse conditions elsewhere in Britain. Numerous named hybrids are available (mainly with N. sarniensis as one parent) for greenhouse decoration as well as a range of species including the delightful dwarf rose-pink N. filifolia and the paler pink, rather taller N. appendiculata, both of which I have seen grown successfully out of doors in Northamptonshire although in severe winters a few bulbs should always be kept in a frost-free greenhouse as an insurance policy. September and October are also the months when the South American Zephyranthes Candida and Sternbergia lutea from southern Europe are at their best. The former species comes from Argentina and Uruguay where it occurs in damp grassy habitats yet adapts readily to our climate producing its white, crocus-like blooms on 2 to 3in(5 to 8cm) stems regularly each autumn. Sternbergia lutea grows wild on sunny, limestone hillsides and sometimes is reluctant to bloom although increasing rapidly from offsets. Warm, sunny borders with wall protection will usually provide ideal flowering conditions for both plants but should S. lutea itself persistently refuse to bloom, grow its narrow-leaved relative, S. sicula, which seldom fails to produce its clusters of golden, crocus-like goblets annually each autumn. Less reliably hardy, but exotic in appearance, is the summer-blooming Tigridia pavonia, the tiger flower, an iris-relative that grows wild in Mexico and some areas of central America and is easily raised from seed. The individual flowers, borne on 12 to 15(30 to 38cm) stems, are over 4in(iocm) across orange, red, yellow or white and variously stippled or spotted in the centre. Cold winters will kill the corms even under a sunny protected wall but as they will often flower within a year of seed being sown casualties may soon be replaced. Most of the peacock flowers, species of Moraea, a genus very closely related to Iris, are not hardy in Britain but M. spathulata and M. moggii, both producing yellow flowers on зА(гт) stems in late summer, seem quite unaffected by our winters given the sunny border conditions prescribed for Amaryllis and Nerine. The Californian Calochortus barbatus with pendulous yellow, brown-marked bells on wiry, flexuous, ift(30cm)-long stems has flowered regularly in late summer in the writer's garden for the last 10 years unprotected and increases steadily by means of bulbils borne in clusters in the leaf axils. It is sadly the only species of the genus that it has proved possible to grow out of doors at Wisley, other species insisting on frame or alpine house culture to exist.