What I can say is that many plants appear to cope fine with viruses, you may get odd colours or crazy patterns (think tulips) but the vigour of the plant might not appear to be affected, in the short term at least. However, with Crocus ligusticus (syn. C.medius) you find that most forms grown in Europe and/or available in the trade are virused. When seed was collected from wild plants a few years ago, the resulting plants have much larger flowers than those in cultivation, so the virus must have retarded them.

Tulips are another good example, with the Dutch 'Tulipomania' for the broken patterns and colours in 1600's going from boom to bust. It's thought that the viruses responsible for the colour breaks eventually weakened the plants so they died out.

Roguing out any plants showing signs of virus is good practice. However, I suspect that with a plant like I. 'Katherine Hodgkin', the virus is quite likely to be latent in all the plants not showing any obvious symptoms but may rear it's head at some point. I'm not sure where one could obtain virus-free stock – perhaps small nursery-men/growers with plants that have had not contact with those bulked up by the Dutch?

I do know that viruses CAN be transferred between different varieties of the same genus/species, and in some cases between different genera. This is why I'm always so careful to 1. rogue out virused plants as soon as I can and 2. keep on top of the aphid population, which can transfer viruses between plants by their sap-sucking. I have a collection of miniature/species Narcissus, Crocus, some Frits, Galanthus etc. When I think about how much Ive paid for all these bulbs and the time invested in raising many of them from seed, I'd rather lose a few bulbs by consigning them to the trash can than risk the many.

Love your pics of the show. You hard work has paid off. Showing season is just starting up here too, but I live on a remote island off the west coast of Scotland, so it's hard for me to get to them sometimes. Seeing online reports, such as the excellent SRGC Forum and blogs like your, is my means of vicariously 'attending'.

Best wishes, from Matt (me too, Maxwell is just a pseudonym)

Maxwell T – Thanks for reminding me about this. I now need to go find out more about this virus, as I remember either reading a long thread about it on the Pacific Bulb Society threads, or in an article. For some reason, I felt that the virus was impossible to get rid of – and few home gardeners are such purists to care even, as the flowers are so gorgeous – but does the virus affect the vigor of the bulb? Or spread to other varieties? Please share more info if you can with us. This sounds like a good topic for me to post about once I do some research also. Thank you once again. – Matt