DAFFODIL CONFERENCE AND EXHIBITION. 



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No. 3, pallidas, is distinct in form and characters. It is 

 very abundant round Bayonne. It extends, as that enterprising 

 investigator Mr. Barr found, along Northern Spain into Galicia. 

 I have elegant and distinct forms said to come from the Eastern 

 Pyrenees, but I have not ascertained its exact eastern limits. 

 I have never received it from Italy ; those offered in Italian 

 catalogues under the name are light-coloured forms of section 1. 



No. 4, albus. — We know but little of this as a wild plant. Only 

 one habitat and one wild variety have been recognised in recent 

 times, though several others are indicated by Parkinson and other 

 old writers. It was re-discovered about 1884, and has since been 

 imported abundantly from the Spanish frontier of the Central 

 Pyrenees, a few miles south of Gavarnie, where it is said to have 

 been nearly exterminated to supply the English market. Other 

 forms reputed to be wild somewhere have been known in culti- 

 vation for more than three centuries. The section will probably 

 be found to have a more extended range. Mr. Barr failed to find 

 it in Galicia, though recorded as a habitat by more than one 

 local botanist. 



No. 5, muticus. — This section is the most important of all from 

 a florist's point of view, because from this base are certainly de- 

 rived those grand forms Emperor, Empress, Horsfieldii, and the 

 rest of that class. The name is adopted from the French 

 botanist Gay, and means nearly the same as abscissus, referring 

 to the " dipt " appearance of the crown. The variety is so dis- 

 tinct that Haworth made of it a separate genus, which he called 

 Oileus. He described six species of it, only one of which he 

 called abscissus, in which the crown seems cut clean off at the 

 mouth. He tells us that he had never seen any one of the six, 

 but muticus is so variable in form and size that if Haworth had 

 had our knowledge of it he could more likely have divided it 

 into- a dozen than into six. Some of the forms are large, rival- 

 ling rugilobus in size, and are nearly uniform sulphur-coloured, 

 while others have a pure white perianth nearly approaching 

 bicolor of Haworth. The characters are : very thick upright dark- 

 green leaves, with rounded tops, long cylindrical crown, often of 

 small diameter, the mouth straight cut or slightly expanded, 

 without prominent lobes. It is by far the latest to flower of all 

 the wild trumpet forms. I had thought it limited to the Pyrenees, 

 but Professor Foster tells me that he found a Daffodil near the 



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