Nick Turland's talk

The event was extremely well attended by around 150 people of all ages. There were a large number of Greeks and, of course, an equally large number of ex-pats. Sakis and his wife made us very welcome and provided wonderful refreshments after the talk. Nick's talk showed us extremely rare flowers from Crete - mostly high mountain plants, which few of us are ever likely to have seen. My particular favourite is the endemic Clematis elizabetha- carolae which grows in an extremely harsh environment. Many of us were amazed to see the beautiful fields of Tulipa doerfleri and we have decided to make a trip over to Rethymnon shortly to see them for ourselves. In the next few days, the Committee of Flowers of Crete will be looking at ways to improve the running of these events - the next one is scheduled for July and to find ways to encourage people to 'sign up' as supporters. I was asked if I would do a talk on the orchids of Crete and a date needs to be set for that. I would like to thank all the members of the Committee for their help in organising and carrying out last nights event. It was a huge undertaking and I couldn't possibly have done it on my own. Thanks also to everyone who donated a prize for the raffle - the amount raised will be published shortly. And, of course, a huge thank you to Nick for giving us his valuable time. We had a great day out in the field with him during the day and his help and advice at Pezoulia has been invaluable. Also many thanks to Babis for stepping into the breach to translate at short notice, which he did most excellently and to Yiorgos from 104.4fm Radio for operating the projector and laptop - a technical job which always worries me enormously.