Thanks everyone for the input. It sounds like the consensus is the S. masoniana is the correct species name, but that whether S. 'Congo' = S. 'Mason's Congo' is unclear, as is the issue of whether this is one of the very large growing varieties/clones. Someone please correct me if I got any of this wrong. Obviously it needed a new pot. I'm not sure if this was wise or not, but I gave it nine new pots. I should have paid more attention during the process as to exactly how many plants it appeared to be. It was clearly more than one plant, put together in the pot. That is what I expected. I assume the rhizome piece (lower left) might eventually form a new plant. This has been lying dry for a couple days. I'll add soil and follow its progress as well. I'm essentially going to leave these alone for a few months and see what happens. I gave a couple larger pots, but I don't have room for a lot of big pots. I haven't watered them yet, and I assume I should approach watering cautiously, particularly while it's cool. My growing area is highly protected and so far is frost-free, even during the freezes which hit California in January. Based on very limited local damage it's clear that I'm actually in zone 10, probably 10a. I'm fairly near the Bay and also at the base of the hills, which creates an interesting microclimate. So I'm going to keep the plants outside, once the current period of 50s/30s passes. It should be mostly 60s/70s and 40s at night for the next couple months, warming up mostly to the 70s/50s in the summer. I assume this is a favorable climate for these guys. Half of my small growing area is rain protected, and I'll put them there. It might be fun to stick one in the ground, but my space is limited (and it's probably not wise to do that while it's still the rainy season).

Well I don't want to discourage people from trying :) Try and decide which pieces look related, then try and decide which one of those came first. Some are related, some aren't. Also look at construction. Do any of the pieces look like the idea preceded the ability to make it work well? For example, this is the Salvador Dali "Mae West" sofa (1937)--a surrealist piece that looks like lips from the front: It seems pretty successful, in a deco way, until you see the Salvador Dali-inspired Bocca or Marilyn Monroe Sofa (1971) which also looks sofa like from the side, lip-like from the front. The technology (fiberglass, foam, etc.) had changed enough to make a lighter, more (sur)realistic version of the lips sofa. (I sorta prefer the Mae West simply because it also looks like a conventional deco sofa.)

I got 4. How sad is that! And that is only because I KNEW those pieces. I'm going to give myself half credit for the Finn Juhl chair, since it's still being made today. So, 4-1/2! Shoot, now that I look at G again I can see that it is a chair. I thought the "back" was really a "handle" of some kind that stood straight up!

I read the article twice and I still don't see where he's " bashing her character ". IMO, it's another one of those sensationalist articles that turns out to be nothing like the headline suggests, and exists only to draw attention and stir up dissention. I feel sorry for the young lady, and I'm sure it was a huge disappointment, but why would she want to keep the medal - as a reminder that she lost ? I'm certainly not a follower of Mike Rowe - too rough around the edges and too full of himself to suit me - but I think we need to stop reading things into these articles that aren't really there.