DAFFODIL CONFERENCE AND EXHIBITION. 



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not enlarge further on this subject, except to say that wherever 

 we find apparently wild Daffodils of very mixed characters it 

 may be fairly concluded that they owe their origin to a cross 

 between two or more varieties. 



Before speaking of the wild hybrids -of N. pseudo -narcissus, I 

 must define hybrid as a cross between two plants recognised as 

 distinct species ; a cross between two varieties of the same species 

 is not rightly called a hybrid. Hybrids may be divided into 

 non-persistent and persistent, also into barren and fertile. 

 How many hybrids may have been produced in past time, to 

 perish again when their life as individuals was ended, we cannot 

 tell. It is only when a hybrid comes with such a constitution 

 and under such conditions as to be persistent and perpetual that 

 botanists think it worth while to adopt it as a species. The first 

 hybrid I shall mention is non-persistent, namely, N. juncifolius 

 x N. psetido-narcissus var. muticus. This occurs sparingly and 

 in single specimens amongst its parents in high mountain 

 pastures near Gavarnie. It is hardly too much to assume, when 

 we thus find that one of the largest of the genus forms a hybrid 

 with nearly the smallest — two species very distinct in form and 

 habit— that any species of Narcissus may, under favourable 

 conditions, be crossed with any other. This hybrid was dis- 

 covered in May 1884, and since that date a local collector has 

 supplied me annually with a few bulbs. The form of the crown 

 varies sufficiently in different individuals to prove their indepen- 

 dent origin. It is not robust in cultivation, having a tendency 

 to break up into small bulbs, which easily perish, and it never 

 bears a seed. It is not unlike a small form of N. odorus. Perhaps 

 N. odorus may be due to some similar cross in remote antiquity ; 

 some botanists have thought its parents to be N. jonquilla x 

 N. pseudo-narcissus \ but if a hybrid, it is certainly a persistent 

 hybrid, though it never bears a seed. Its native home is 

 uncertain ; it is not known that N. jonquilla is now found wild 

 anywhere in company with N. pseudo-narcissus. Another hybrid 

 which has established itself persistently and independently m 

 several places is N. pseudo-narcissus x N. triandrus. Mr. Tait 

 sent me several bulbs of this in 1885, which he found scattered 

 singly amongst the parents. Two years later it was found 

 growing in quantity near Oporto, and was named N. Johns toni, 

 and I believe that Mr. Barf found some variety of it in North- 



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