"I'm not sure I trust photographs alone" This point was brought home yesterday. My friend and neighbor wants very badly to find morel mushrooms. Her morel loving brother is the business man I referred to in an earlier post. She's been feeling left out and was so excited when she called me Tuesday night to ask that I step into my driveway. She wanted to show me a ginormous morel she had found. But when I went out she realized she had swapped vehicles with her husband and did not have the morel with her. I made a point of stopping by her place at noon yesterday to see the motherload and be excited for her. When she showed me her treasure, the words that just fell out of my mouth were, "That's a red morel." "You mean as in false morel?" "Yes, as in very poisonous. Look at it. It's red." "No, it just looks black because it's past its prime. I showed it to my morel loving brother and he said it was still fine to eat." "I'm telling you, it's a red/false morel and I really wish you wouldn't eat it because I don't want to drive the carpool for both our children all by myself next year." "Oh, you're just trying to ruin my fun." In the background her husband was going back to thegreatmorel.com and looking it up. He took the mushroom to the kitchen and did a cross section which determined definitively it was a false morel. False morels, although they have hollow spots in a cross section are generally solid. A real morel has a hollow trunk. Furthermore the real morels here are golden in color (we don't have the black kind) and it was very clear to me that the blackened red color was not the edible kind. The pictures on the great morel were very clear to me. I don't know if she just wasn't seeing stuff in her excitement to find a morel, or the pictures just didn't do the job for her. Either way, I left there with goose bumps. I found five more yesterday and prepared them somewhat differently, this time with only butter, no breading. Much better for my palette. On the flip side, I tried just brushing them very well and not washing or soaking them. That was a mistake. Despite a thorough brushing, there was still grit and that detracted significantly from the experience. Next time, it will be a quick swish in water, as opposed to a soaking, then followed by a treatment with the kitchen sink sprayer. I'll get it right eventually.

beth, Beautiful blooms. What kind is it? A few of mine have bloomed so far this year. I have a few others that have buds. It has been so windy that all the leaves have been getting shredded and buds drop so the flushes lately aren't as large as I hoped. Yours look great though:) My cestrum nocturn just finished its first flush this year. I used to think it had to be humid to get them to bloom when I lived in LA but they do great here in the desert as long as they get afternoon shade. I don't know why more people don't grow them here. It also bloomed at christmas here on the patio too which was a suprise to me but nice! ~SJN

I'm doing good for an 80 year old. Do not spend much time on garden web since the changes. I'm into African Violets now. I have two shelf units-5 shelves each. I do the RRs for leaves and have about 50 now. My hoya are outside on the patio under the roof. Get some rain when the wind blows. I've sore of neglected them. I love when they bloom though. We sit outside in the evening and the fragrance is beautiful. I wished they bloomed more often than once a year. I may bring some inside and put some of the smaller leaved ones on a shelf instead of the violets. I am on Facebook more than here on Gardenweb. I can't get used to all the changes. It was easier before because i had tabs for the hoya forum, african violet forum, and the cactus forum. Now I just go to African violets and only when we are active in a RR, which is now. Most of the violet people went to facebook. Such is the times, changing, changing. Good to see you are still with the hoya. Keep up the great work.

Anne, well put! here here!!!! PS. Just so you know Anne,,,,,I cut and pasted every one of these pix so I can always look at them! I do that with almost all of the violet pix posted on this forum!!!! Rosie