Outside her Grover Beach home, her treasure is closely guarded and cared for behind the white plastic panels of greenhouse a few feet away from her basset hound. The dog is armed with the bark of a bagpipe wounded with a hole and the grace one suffering from oversized ears and short stubby legs could possibly muster. "I've been blown away by these plants since the first time I saw them," Boone says as she pulls back the flap of a plastic panel, releasing a gust of warm humidity, to reveal her pride and joy. "They are just absolutely incredible."

Inside, more than 1,000 epiphyllum plants consisting of more than 200 different species thrive in the climate trapped within the four walls of the greenhouse creating a virtual jungle reminiscent of the South American tropical rain forests from which they come. A long, gray hose running from Boone's house to the greenhouse pumps in heat to regulate the climate necessary for the plants' survival.

The plants, which look like a cross between an orchid and cacti, originate deep in the tropical jungles of Mexico, Central and South America. The blooms grown by the plants - explosions of bright, brilliant colors the size of dinner plates - have made the epiphyllum one of the most prized of flowering plants.

Generations of cross pollination, or hybridization, have created rare, species once highly sought out by nobility and English royalty. Prices for the plants range from $12 for a 6-inch cutting to $40 for a 4-foot plant. Rare, specially hybridized species can sell for several thousand dollars. Those who own a species of epiphyllum called cereus oxypetalum, a plant that blooms at night, often throw parties when the flower is ready to open. Gathered around the potted plant, the spectators sip champagne and enjoy the unusually overpowering fragrance that "knocks your socks off" when the bloom finally opens. The almost cultist attraction to epiphyllums has even created what some call "a secret community" where collectors spend their time hybridizing their own species which they keep to themselves.

"You find that a lot of the people who are into epiphyllums don't like to talk about them. They're very catty about them," Boone said. "It's kind of like having the rarest diamond." Boone, however, has no intention of hoarding the beauty of her hobby. In fact, her cultivating effort is being done with public consumption in mind. "Where else do jewels belong but in a crown?" she asks.

Or better yet a palace. A butterfly palace.

For the past two years, Boone has been ardently working on plans to create a Butterfly Palace on the Central Coast as a tribute to her late husband. In what is being touted as "the Smithsonian of the West for butterflies," the Daniel Boone Butterfly Palace - named after the famed pioneer of whom Sheila Boone is the fifth-great-granddaughter would include a research facility and breeding laboratory aimed at preserving the dwindling Western Monarch and its migratory sites along the Central Coast.

The centerpiece of the palace will be a glass domed structure covering the largest indoor live butterfly conservatory in the country. The inside of the dome will be transformed into a rain forest complete with waterfalls and tropical plants. It is here where Boone plans to put her epiphyllums on display. "Butterflies love these plants, they just go crazy for them,"Boone said.

Cost of constructing the building, which also includes an arboretum, aviary and separate exhibit solely for the Western Monarch, is estimated at around $80 million.

Boone is currently negotiating a deal to purchase the Canata property in Nipomo - 280 acres located off Frontage Road.

In the next two weeks, comparative studies of all butterfly houses across the United States along with a feasibility study of such a project for the Central Coast is expected to be complete. With the combined figures, Boone hopes to round up the financial support she needs to see her dream through.

"There's no doubt in my mind that this is going to happen," she said.

Boone has already garnered support from a number of local business owners who see the profitability of such a venture.

"I think it's going to end up promoting a lot of local business," said Ernest Andrade, manager of Marie Callender's in Pismo Beach. Speedling Inc., and Great Western Tours and Travel out of Pasadena have also thrown their support behind the project.

But perhaps the most noted endorsement comes from butterfly expert Lincoln Brower, whose charge to preserve the Mexican overwintering site of Cerro Pelon was covered in the November 1999 issue of Vanity Fair, "Flight of the Monarchs."

Brower said Boone's quest to build her palace is "imperative" as urban sprawl and pesticides continue to threaten the Western Monarch.

"There is very high probability that we will lose the overwintering sites in Mexico due to uncontrollable deforestoration which will spell the demise of the,migration east of the Rocky Mountains, thus leaving California as sole guardian of the North America migration," Brower said.

Boone, along with several noted experts, states that the Western Monarch is already in trouble. Earlier this year, Boone, along with Kingston Leong, entomology professor at Cal Poly, called attention to an overwintering site in Cayucos where butterfly numbers have dropped severely, from 60,000 last year to somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 this year.

With the educational backing of the Butterfly Palace, Boone hopes to save such sites as Cayucos and the other six to eight existing major sites.

"Why do we take the chance of losing these beautiful things who come here year after year?" Boone asked. With the most famous site here in Pismo Beach, Boone said there are few wintering sites left for the Western Monarch butterfly in California.