Bluejays are also very famous for hiding seeds for "later use", although they never use them. They say bluejays actually account for more trees planted than squirrels. As mentioned, the seeds were either taken from someone elses pumpkins, or from "critter mix" which is sold pretty much everywhere. It contains pumpkin seeds, along with many other things, and they market it for people who wish to feed "critters" like squirrels, chippies, rabbits, etc. This reminds me of a funny story. I had some bluejays friends that I was giving whole peanuts everyday, to the point where if I didn't have some on the deck railing, they'd sit in front of the sliding door and holler. Anyway, I was taking an unused satellite tv dish off of my roof one day, and as I took it down, peanuts started to drop on the roof and roll into the gutter. I looked around and discovered that the bluejays were hiding the nuts in the little box thing that aims at the dish. I also find random spots around the house where patched of sunflowers grow, as well as corn stalks. They like to hide them in trees also, between branches and in any holes. Joe

I suspect your problem is that this is the busy season for gardeners. The reason they're not getting back to you is because they don't have time.

In light of drought across the state - even here in the normally damp SF Bay Area, we only got an inch or two of rain between October and February - I should consider heat/drought tolerance. Does Autumn Damask get by there, on its own roots? Centifolias? When I brought Portland breeding up towards the end of May, the thread grew to 25 posts in the first day, but since it's been just us and the sound of crickets in this thread, I'm guessing I'll be continuing this as a solo project. I'll probably post updates every 6-12 months, depending on how interesting the offspring are looking. And since no thread on breeding is complete without a picture of a seedling, here's a dinky moss. Disease free despite having never been sprayed, but that's all I can say at this point.

Well, since conspiracy and crazy have more in common than both starting with the letter 'c', as we all know, I'm personally glad that this is stirring the Opuntia pot - great plant genus, from the Peace River in northern British Columbia to Tierra del Fuego - how can you not dig this cactus genus? And the only genus with glochids - yikes, it just gets better and better. Anyway, my point is that you might not want to depend solely on N. Lord Britton's description - something might have happened since then. Is your well-known expert updating what was originally described by NLB?