DOUBLE DAFFODILS 63 



sold the bunch ; we found more specimens of the rare double 

 variety, and some partially double. She remarked that she did 

 not know that double ones grew there before her children had 

 gathered some this season, which surprised her. These daffodils 

 are also not like the common large double daffodils, for they are 

 much smaller, some of them having eight pale segments like 

 a calyx, with a bright yellow perfect tube full of petals or seg- 

 ments. I have submitted some to Messrs. Barr and Sons, who 

 write of them as the little double Pseudo-Narcissus plenus, which 

 they say is always a more or less variable plant. The first- 

 mentioned double flower they describe as " a chance sport of the 

 Pseudo-Narcissus plenus," and add that it probably would not 

 come constant. 



Now, what causes a sport ? Is it not a condition which is 

 governed by some natural law ? I understand that bulbs do not 

 change, but always produce the same kind of flowers, and that 

 varieties are produced from seed obtained by crossings with foreign 

 stock. May it not be that these flowers, growing far from any 

 others, and not being a large community, have been for generations 

 — perhaps centuries — crossing and recrossing each other, until 

 they have by some law of nature become degenerated, and by 

 degrees their reproductive organs have disappeared, and thus 

 they have become double flowers ? Some of the partially double 

 daffodils had imperfect stamens ; perhaps they had not experi- 

 enced so many generations of crossings as those which have 

 lost all appearance of these organs, and have become quite 

 double. 



I have consulted authorities on the subject, and have been 

 referred to various articles written by expert botanists, but I have 

 not obtained a direct answer as to how single-flowered plants 

 become double. Some gardeners seem to succeed by over- 

 nourishing the plants, others by starving them ; some select 

 seed from particular parts of the pods or collect those grown in 

 particular situations ; but none of these methods are satisfactory 

 or certain. 



It is thought by some that flowers are doubled by the action 

 of insects at the root of the plant, but that does not seem reason- 

 able. I think they might rather destroy the flower than make it 

 a thing of more beauty. Imported single-flowering plants, w^iich 

 produce only double flowers in this country, can easily be under- 

 stood, as they do not bring their insect agents with them, and 

 other insects cannot do their work for them. 



If I am cori'ect in considering that these curious double daffo- 

 dils are the result of self-fertilization, or the constant crossing of 

 the same stock, I think the mystery of the origin of the Narcissus 

 eystettensis, which "has exercised the minds of all writers on 

 daffodils for three hundred years," is partly solved. 



