DAFFODIL CONFERENCE AND EXHIBITION. 



325 



THURSDAY, April 17. 



On the second day of the Conference the chair was taken at 2 p.m. 

 by J. G. Baker, Esq., F.R.S., who opened the meeting as 

 follows : — 



In dealing with Daffodils I must necessarily look at them 

 from the botanist's point of view. The genuslSfarcissus has now 

 got out of the hands of the botanist, and gone into the hands of 

 the hybridist, who has raised numerous forms by crossing one 

 kind with another. With these various forms the botanist has 

 little to do, except in so far as he can trace every production of 

 the hybridist to its parents. We botanists can only go to a 

 certain point in dealing with garden plants of all kinds, and 

 after that the gardeners take them up and knock us out of time 

 entirely, and can tell us more than we know about their varia- 

 tions and life history. 



When I look back twenty years (for it was in the year 1869 

 I wrote a review of the genus Narcissus in the Gardeners' 

 Chronicle), I am surprised and gratified at the progress which 

 has been made. At that time very few people took any interest 

 in Daffodils, but a complete revolution has taken place, and the 

 Daffodil now shares with the Primrose the honour of being the 

 most popular flower of the spring-time. 



The genus is of great interest from a botanical point of view. 

 We are obliged as , botanists to deal with all plants on one 

 uniform plan as regards arrangement and nomenclature. 

 From that point of view we look upon Narcissus pseudo- 

 narcissus as a single aggregate species, and, comprised within 

 this, there are in gardens about 200 forms. In the whole genus 

 we have only about twelve or sixteen distinct species in this 

 sense. The greatest change at the present time is the raising 

 of forms from species or varieties not known to hybridise before, 

 and it is wonderful that all the Narcissi cross so freely, many of 

 them — as, for instance, N. pseudo-narcissus and N. poeticus — 

 being so distinct from each other in form. The consequence is 

 that we have that enormous range of variation in form which is 

 so well represented here before us to-day. 



I will not take up your time any longer, but call on Mr. 

 Wolley-Dod to read his paper to you, which will doubtless be of 



