Barry
Sorry for late reply but......
>So are _Pings_ that are said to grow in a neutral or neutral-basic media
>really doing so?
If you take one of those meters on a stick (you know, the portable pH
metre kind that not so cheap stores like to con us into buying) and if
you plunge it into the soil where these lime lovers reputedly live,
(being careful not to try to plunge into solid limestone) you will
indeed find the soil has a high pH (i.e., slightly greater than 7).
As for do they need high pH, of course not (in some cases but I
wouldn't risk experiments on Spanish rarities if I had them!). If you
grow the easist lime lovers in acid soil they grow fine and even
flower. But they produce a lower number of hibernaculae just as they
do if kept to dry or too warm. So they really do prefer lime.
Never did trust chemists!
Paul