Garypnw, thanks for showing us this remarkable plant, it's amazing, dramatic and beautiful all rolled into one !!

They are amazing and produce a lot of viable but tricky seed. Even in z8b critical to not bury the bulbs and to top mulch. The upper 10-15% = 0.5-1.5" needs to be exposed. If leaves and pine needles bury them hy 0.5 to 1" and turns to leaf compost, they bulbs rot. If you don't mulch and it gies below 25 F the bulb tops freeze and that bulb may rot. The baby offspring bulbs are 1-2" below the soli and safe. They grow pineapple size and must be exposed to stay healthy when mature.

My bulbs started sprouting this year in mid Febuary. So it's always touch and go. Guessing z8a to z9a with cool summers is perfect for them. Dry mulch and rain shield may drop that a zone. But their early sprouting will make you blanket or cold frame them, if you get a cold snap. The Yunnan variety is more vigorus and for giving of the two.

Internet photos showing the potentials.

C. giganteum v giganteum

C. giganteum v yunnanense

The 'little shop of horrors' style of seed pods make amazing flower arrangements.

The seed capsules are 2-3" long.

Horror story with a miracle ending. That photo above with the shovel shows my first Yunnanense bolting into bloom. I had been admiring the huge bulb sprout and glossy leaves rapidly expanding, growing 2-3" a day.

Understand I had wanted to grow one for 50 years. My parent's bulb and my first were lost in cold snap freezes and being leaf mold burried. My first BC Conservatory seed did not grow. Then I found two local new bulb sources

Then a cold snap and snow in early March. I was just sick. See photo. The bright green leaves looked black and water soaked and soft like cooked cabbage or when a semitropical Canna gets frost hit and dies. The snow was melting and I was convinced the plant was as good as dead.

A few hours later my wife called me st work and said that it was amazing, the plant sprung back.

This is my Wife next to the weather hit plant in June when it later bloomed at 9.5'.

Another amazing thing is that if you time lapse the bolting stem you would see the huge leaves on the stem flapping up and down independent of day length. It would look like it was actively trying to fly upwards by flapping wings.

Up down flap sequence photo on two sequential mornings shown (before the cold snap).

Finally other movements of the plant and seeds are also dynamic and seem highly programmed.

The flower buds point down at first. With the larger buds on the bottom. They even in size then in unison lift to level (in the Yunnanense) and open from the top down.

After blooming and Incensing you with evening/night fragrance, the flowers wither and in unison move to point upwards. In early to late winter, they crack open from the top and slowly expand open. These reveals three capsule seed chambers.

The seeds slowly loosen from the top down. The wind blows and shakes stems. But the 1/2" flat seed disks get caught in the capsule teeth and must shake upwards over time in the grooves of the teeth gripping them. The seeds above block the progress of those below.

As the top ones finally escape a little flock of seeds flutter out shake in tbe falling process and suspend in the sir much longer than do Maple wing shaped seeds. Thus, they can be wisked away in the wind. But only a few at a time no matter how much one shakes it!

Thus, they seed for weeks to months over a series of storms, with the chance of multiple distances and directions. When the seeds hit the ground they flat seeds tend to orient the seeds on flat ground or in grass in specific orientations. Even if flat on the ground, the flat wing tends to hold the seed to the ground and they don't seem to blow elsewhere easily. So they hold tbeir oriention well when germinating.

Once they get wet on the ground they stick there even better. However, they don't tend to get wet and stick together in the seed pods. A slight hydrophobic surface coating seems to be active in the pods and the up pointed pods don't pool water.

The stems side anchor (like corn) with rings of roots. The stems are quite thin walled, but strong and light. The seed capsule group weight next to nothing but is so strong it will last for years in dried arrangements.

Spent mother bulb Internet photo showing anchor roots and new baby bulb shoots.

I'm trained as a life research scientist. This genus and species truly amazes me. So much evolution selection in a specific extreme/marginal environment seems to be connected with this dramatic plant. Definely inspired my mother nature in any case!