DISTRIBUTION SEED - the Scottish Rock Garden Club

The Scottish Rock Garden Club
62nd Seed Distribution, 2008/09
Welcome once more to our seed exchange. Many donors say that damp conditions this summer have hampered
ripening, but the choice for members does not appear to be significantly reduced. In fact I have had a very busy
time checking on new species and new genera so there should be plenty of challenges for green fingers.
Application
This year, you will be able to apply for seed using the order forms in the centre of the booklet as usual, sending
these to Alan Hayes. But you can now choose to go online at the SRGC website (www.srgc.org.uk) to make your
booking. The website password 19srgc33 will be needed. Even if you send in an order on the paper forms by
post, you will be able to pay for seed by credit card online in Sterling. All orders must be received by January
15th. Donors may choose 25 packets, non-donors 16 packets. Please follow the instructions carefully, and write
legibly to ensure we pick the items you want. The charge for the main order for UK members is £4, but this
charge is included in the subscriptions of overseas members. The procedure and cost for surplus seed is detailed
on the Surplus order form.
Distribution
Distribution of seed starts in January, first for donors’ main orders, then for non-donors, and finally for surplus
seed applications. We expect main orders to be sent out by 20th January; surplus orders will not be selected or
posted until that day, after all main orders have been fulfilled. You will therefore receive your main and surplus
orders some days or weeks apart. We urge US members to send all the paperwork with the request form; see
centre page (i).
Phytosanitary restrictions outwith European Union
As before, US members should not choose any items marked with a black spot • . All members outwith the EU are
not allowed to be sent ‘live material’, which means bulbs, bulblets, corms, rice. Such items will be marked if
the donor had made it clear. For their phytosanitary authorities, Australian, New Zealand and US members must
write a separate list of items requested which must include the names, as they did last year.
About the list
Again the RHS Plant Finder 1 is my primary information source for avoiding duplicate entries under different
names. Species not in the Plant Finder are checked with the IPNI website 2 , and if not found there or by a wider
search they are marked † . Surprisingly there are some genera that cannot be found in IPNI. Accuracy in naming
cannot be certain, but plants should have been examined by the donors before collecting seed for the Exchange.
It should be remembered that named varieties will rarely come true, so ‘ex’ must always be assumed. For the
same reason a donor’s colour description may be simplified. Pointers from old to new names will continue in the
garden seed section while old names are still in common use.
After the genus name the sequence is sp., donor’s form descriptions, named varieties, then species; the same
sequence is used after the species name: forms, varieties and subspecies. Some unknown species are offered as
sp., and an entry spp. means that there is a mixture of species of that genus.
Pictures of some plants, denoted , are in our website gallery. The Seed List will soon appear on the website,
and will be available for the season, so when your seed packets arrive labelled only with the current list number
and you have unfortunately lost this listing, you can identify them in this way.
Some of the entries in the list have been mentioned in the Notes on pages 33 & 34, and for those in the garden
section you will be alerted by a double-dagger ‡. Those mentioned in the wild section are easily found through
collectors’ numbers.
Botanical families have again been added to the genera with a three-letter code, usually the first three letters of
the family name.
1 RHS Plant Finder; Dorling Kindersley, London, 2008
2 www.ipni.org/index.html
2
Stuart Pawley