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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Daffodil stage ; but we cannot venture to accept them as being 

 quite free from a suspicion of garden origin. 



Until negative evidence is forthcoming, I think we must con- 

 sider N. bicolor of Haworth as a selection from either N. muticus 

 or N. variiformis, and then look upon it as the parent, or co- 

 parent, of all the seedling or garden bicolour varieties known 

 to-day. It was grown by Herbert, as also by Leeds and 

 Backhouse and Horsfield, all of whom had the good fortune to 

 develop it to advantage from the florist's point of view. Mr. 

 Backhouse indeed expressly tells us that, although N. bicolor 

 " seeds badly, and is " (or was with him in Weardale) " deficient 

 in pollen," he can add, " but from crosses of the other Daffodils 

 with it, I have raised some of the largest and finest of the class." 

 We get here a glimpse of the origin and history of N. Empress, 

 N. J. B. M. Camm, N. Emperor, N. T. A. Domen- Smith, and 

 other of Mr. Backhouse's fine seedling bicolour varieties, and his 

 remarks as to the parentage of these kinds throw a lucid side- 

 light on the origin of Mr. Leeds's N. Grandee (N. bicolor 

 maximus), as also on the production of Mr. John Horsfield's 

 noble bicolour Daffodil which now bears his honoured name. 



Golden Daffodils and N. Incomparabilis. 



It is when we come to consider the yellow or golden Daffodils 

 and the " Incomparables," however, that it verily seems as if 

 chaos had come again. They are almost innumerable. But 

 there are some so distinct and effective that we cannot absolutely 

 neglect them. The finest and most stately and most golden of 

 all, as seen at its best, is N. maximus. It is the Narcissus 

 grandiflorus of Salisbury, who, in Hort. Trans, vol. i., p. 344, 

 says it is abundantly wild in the mountains of L'Esperon. I 

 believe it has been reintroduced from the French or Spanish 

 frontier quite recently, but we must yet await further details, as 

 there seems a doubt as to whether the bulbs were collected from 

 a wild habitat or from a cultivated one. That N. maximus 

 has long been in cultivation is amply proven by the figures of it 

 which exist in " Theatrum Flora3 " (1622) and in " Campi 

 Elysii" (1702). 



Another distinct variety (N. obvallaris), naturalised at Tenby, 

 is also a puzzle, as no one appears to have found its Continental 



