「マリアホワイト」の名前の由来は、大輪系のゴージャスな「レイナホワイト」に対し、中輪系の清楚で上品な雰囲気と性質の強さを兼ね備えたイメージにより命名されました。立体感のある柔らかいフリル咲きの八重咲きで、花弁が厚めで花保ちが良いのも特徴的です♪　2012年新品種。

フランス作曲家のビゼーのオペラ「カルメン」のヒロインをイメージした情熱的な花色の大輪八重咲き品種。「カルメンカシス」は「カルメンルージュ」と比べ紫味の強い深みのある花色 2012年新品種♪

フランス作曲家のビゼーのオペラ「カルメン」ヒロインをイメージしたリシアンサス。ベルベットの様なルージュ色が美しい、情熱的な花色の大輪八重咲き品種

サカタのタネと個人育種家の佐瀬昇氏との共同開発により誕生した「アンバー」シリーズのイエローグリーン系の品種。硬い花弁で花保ちGOOD♪　「アンバー」とは琥珀（こはく）のことで、ヨーロッパでは「琥珀を贈る」ことは、「幸福を贈る」メッセージとされているそうです。またイギリスでは「琥珀婚」といい結婚10年目に琥珀を贈る習わしがあるとのこと。

茨城県鶴田茂美さんの「ソネットエミュ」、「ソネットプレナ」のご紹介をさせていただきます。

「ソネットエミュ」

「ソネットプレナ」

いずれもソネットシリ−ズの新品種で花の中央に朱赤の目が入るのが特徴です。

ダイアンサス類は年々生産減少傾向にある中ですが、種苗会社、生産者の方々と協力して継続して提案できる環境を整えて参りたいと考えています。

ご利用の程よろしくお願い致します。

（芳垣）

このまま1匹、1匹、また1匹と去って行くのか、或る日一斉に消えるのか。今少し観察を続けます。

BHL Staff at the 2012 BHL Staff& Technical Meeting, Cambridge, MA, 27-28 September

Jenna Nolt with a specimen of an edible polypore, genus Laetiporus, commonly known as chicken of the woods.

As a new librarian and new member of BHL, I was privileged to represent the U.S. Geological Survey Libraries at the staff meeting in September.  Our libraries have been contributing to BHL since March, and this was an exciting opportunity to meet, learn from, and collaborate with the other members.

From the moment I walked through the door I was impressed by the positive energy and enthusiasm of the whole group. After a general session we broke out into the staff track and the technical track; I stayed on the technical track.  As the sole librarian at my library dedicated to digitization, this was a valuable opportunity for me to discuss in detail some of the complexities of the digital world.  One thing I realized very quickly during these discussions is that all of us, in our individual libraries as well as in BHL, are addressing the same challenges of how to best organize, preserve, and expose complex objects in a constantly shifting digital landscape.

I was particularly interested in the discussion about OCR (optical character recognition) and excited by the plan for BHL to implement full-text searching, something that would be a huge benefit to our scientists and researchers. To accomplish this BHL will be usingSolrwhich not only allows full-text searching, but also allows for faceted navigation, hit highlighting, and corrective spelling ("did you mean...") features that any researcher knows the value of.

I was most actively involved with the section onMacaw, a piece of software created by Joel Richard at the Smithsonian used to upload digital objects packaged with metadata toInternet Archive. Our library has been testing and using Macaw for the past few months, and it has given us the ability to create a completely in-house digitization process for public domain materials. It was a great chance to speak with Joel directly and discuss with the group the possibility of setting up a cloud-based instance with multi-institutional access, which would be a huge advantage for many BHL members.

One theme emerged strongly for me over the course of the meeting.  I've become increasingly aware working in the information field that there are no simple answers in the digital world, no clear standards, and sometimes no answers at all. As anyone who has tried to do serious research online knows, this can be extremely frustrating.  But what I realized is that the BHL is at the cutting edge of constructing standards and creating answers where there are none to find.  When those skills are combined with the enthusiasm, passion for knowledge, and a love of science I saw at the meeting - well, that's where the really cool stuff happens.

Thank you all and...I can't believe I am saying this, but...can't wait for the next meeting!