340 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDERER. 
[ April 29, 1886. 
garded in a good year as not up to the mark. Perhaps my ideas are con¬ 
sidered antiquated and pertaining too much to the “ old fogey” character, 
but after all I may be right. 
Taking the two collections exhibited for the class of twelves, there 
were in Mr. Douglas’s lot the following Verdure, a seedling of his own, 
with a very pure green edge, but with somewhat too much body colour, 
giving it rather a coarse appearance ; Prince of Greens, a fine truss, with 
perhaps a trifle too much colour—what a pity that this lovely green edge 
has so pale a tube, with a yellow one it would be a great beauty ; Co'onel 
Taylor, a little rough ; Conservative, a very sweet flower of the Smiling 
Beauty style ; Mabel, a seedling green ; Charles J. Perry, large truss and 
fine ; George Lightbody, good; and Smiling Beauty in good form. 
Amongst Mr. Turner’s twelve were Lady Sophia Dumaresque (Lightbody), 
a white edge rarely seen, rather angular but a very showy flower ; George 
Lightbody; Prince Henry, a seedling, not likely to take a first prize. 
There were amongst the six in Mr. Douglas’s lot Abbe Liszt, a very good 
green edge, the green particularly bright and clear, its defect being too 
large an eye; George Lightbody, good ; Prince of Greens, rather straggling 
truss, a defect which this fine flower is sometimes prone to. In Mr. 
Turner’s were George Lightbody, neat and clean ; Charles Edward Brown, 
good, a flower that very often comes near to George Lightbody ; Traill’s 
Beauty, in good form. Mr. Llewelyn was third with his seedling Grey- 
friar, rather rough and too much body colour ; Acme, good decided white 
edge ; Alderman Wisby, somewhat large. 
The class for fifties was of the usual character, some very good flowers 
and some very indifferent ones. In Mr. Douglas’s collection were Dr. Kidd, 
a seedling; Sapphire, very bright, but I failed to distinguish much differ¬ 
ence between it and Charles J. Perry. Frank Simonite would be a 
fine flower were it not for its pale washy tube ; it seems almost impassible. 
Conservative good, Lancashire Hero in its green character, Prince of 
Greens good, and Garibaldi (Pohlman’s) good dark self. In Mr. 
Turner’s collection there was a good truss of John Warliston, which he 
does better than I have seen it elsewhere. Confidence, too, large and 
rough, and Traill's Beauty, good—this flower is very uncertain, some¬ 
times meriting its name, at other times more like the Beast than the 
Beauty. A very good bloom of John Simonite, a good white edge, was 
shown by Mr. Potts in the “single” class. Geo. Lightbody took first 
in greens, but I, as an old florist, should not have called it a green edge, 
as there was a considerable quantity of the “ powder daisies, I think Mr. 
Horner calls it, like Daisies in a green lawn, and it was nearer a grey than 
a green. Acme came in well in the white edges, and is perhaps the most 
decided white edge we have. There was a very good plant of Traill’s 
Beauty which took the fifth prize. Among seifs there was a good plant of 
Black Ben, exhibited by Mr. Bolton, one of Mr. Woodhead’s seedlings. 
In seedlings there was but little competition, and few prizes were 
awarded. This is as it should be when the varieties exhibited are not 
superior or equal to those already grown ; for although a prize does not 
quite give the same position as a certificate, yet it gives a certain value 
to a flower, and if it is not meritorious may afterwards cause disappoint¬ 
ment. Amongst the green edges there was nothing worthy of note. 
Amongst greys, Mr. Llewelyn had a second prize for a grey edge of 
medium quality. In whites, Mr. Douglas had a good white edge Snowdon 
Knight, apparently of the same strain as his Conservative and Sylvia, a 
good white edge with dark body colour, paste solid and good, and a good 
yellow tube. There were two good seifs exhibited by Mr. W. Bolton ; 
one, Mrs. W. H. Bolton, a very deep maroon, nearly black, and with a 
good paste and eye; the other, Mrs. Wilson, a large-sized pip of deep 
purple. The premier prize in the Show was, as usual, awarded to 
George Lightbody, a fine truss already alluded to in Mr. Douglas’ collec¬ 
tion of twelve. It shows how difficult it is, with all the efforts of raisers, 
to gain anything which surpasses that grand flower. Let us hope that 
another season may be more favourable. Evidently the growers of the 
flowers are increasing in number, and we hope that they may have a 
better opportunity of competing.—D., Deal. 
THE DAFFODIL. 
[A paper by the Rev. C. Wolley Dod, read at the Horticultural Clnb, April 14th.] 
( Continued from page 313.) 
I next speak of the characters and geographical distribution of several 
of the wild forms, and I may first remark that our knowledge of wild 
forms of Pseudo-Narcissus is increasing rapidly, and that every year new 
varieties are being added to our list, or the true home of some old garden 
variety is being discovered. N. Pseudo-Narcissus, as a species, is confined 
to Europe, and extends from the Atlantic on the west, and the latitude 
possibly of Edinburgh northwards, to about the longitude of Berlin east¬ 
wards. It has been reported as native in Hungary and other parts of the 
Austrian empire as far east as Transylvania, but Herr Willkomon, Prof, 
of Botany in the University of Prague, has told me that he does not 
believe it to be indigenous in those parts. It is unknown in Turkey or 
Greece. Its head quarters may be considered to be the region of the 
Pyrenees, and it is most abundant in Southern France, Northern Spain 
and Portugal, and Northern Italy. Whether it extends quite to the south 
of these latter countries is uncertain. It is convenient to adopt, as Mr. 
Baker has done, the five species of Linnreus as sub-species or sections 
under which to classify the known wild varieties. These sections are— 
I, Pseudo-Narcissus; 2, major; 3, minor; 4, bicolor; 5, moschatus. 
I say I adopt these divisions of names for convenience, but I cannot 
say that they are satisfactory, though I have no better to offer. As the 
number of wild varieties found grows upon us, we find it more and more 
difficult to adjust them according to these sub-species. All arbitrary defi¬ 
nitions break down. Whether we take colour, or size, or structure, we find 
from eni to end, from the mostconcolorous to the most bicolorous, from the 
smallest to the largest, an unbroken series of links, and if we try to make 
a set of characters to fit particular names, they utterly fail when applied 
in practice. The minors, the majors, the Pseudo-Narcissus, the bicolors of 
Portugal, of the Pyrenees, of the Maritime Alps, all differ, and have some 
characters of one name, and some of another, and I therefore adopt these 
names, with this proviso, and as having, not only no real limitation as 
sub-species, but no consistent characters reaching beyond the individuil 
variety we may accept as their type. 
As for the first, the Daffodil found wild in England has generally been 
adopted as the type of the species, and of this section. In Devonshire 
where it is most abundant, it varies most in size, in substance of flower, 
in deepness oE colour of the corona, and in width and recurving of its 
mouth. The corona, however, is seldom much recurved in English 
varieties. A form now known as scoticus is found in Ayrshire, taller and 
stouter, and with larger flowers than the type, and earlier in flower, and 
in its recurved corona presenting a beautiful example of crenation. It is 
improbable that it is indigenous to Scotland. 
I must next mention that I know three places in England, one being 
in Oxfordshire and two in Dorsetshire, where typical Pseudo-Narcissus 
grow mixed up with concolorous forms, both white and yellow, presenting 
similar characters to the type. With them grow others resembling the 
bicolor section. After cultivating these forms and examining them, I 
believe that they are due to different varieties of foreign origin, planted 
together by design or accident, the offspring of which are hybrid. The 
largest development of the section p3eudo-Narcissus is found in Italy 
where varieties called Telamonius and princeps are found in the valleys 
and lower slopes of the Apennines, the former having the most twisted 
leaf of any Daffodil I know, and the latter the longest corona, sometimes 
exceeding 2 inches in length, or more than two and a half times the length 
of the tube. From the Pyrenees themselves, amongst thousands of 
Daffodils, I have never received any of exactly the English type, though 
it may exist there, but the prevailing Pseudo-Narcissus of the lower slopes 
of the Pyrenees, extending west almost to the sea level near Biarritz, is 
an elegant very pale early Daffodil, which we have imported under two 
names, pallidus pnecox. and variiformis, the latter name very suitable, as 
it is a very variable Daffodil both in shades oE colour, form of corona, and 
relative proportions of the parts of the flower. It carries its flowers at 
nearly every angle to the horizon, and the leaves are distinct in appear¬ 
ance, being hardly at all glaucous. It seems to have been unknown to 
Haworth, who, in his twenty-nine species of Trumpet or Ajax Daffodil, 
does not even enumerate any into which it could possibly be made to fit. 
This Daffodil has scarcely any character which is not inconstant and 
variable. 
The forms included under the second section, major, are mostly con¬ 
colorous, and of rich yellow. They have often been distinguished as 
Spanish, but at least one, the spurius of modern gardens, is probably 
native in Italy, and not yet known to be wild in Spain. The Tenby 
Daffodil, quite naturalised in South Wales, but of which the true habitat 
is unknown, belongs to this section. So does that very fine Daffodil, the 
maximus of gardens, which will probably be found native somewhere 
either in North Italy or Spain, when the countries have been more closely 
searched in early spring. The nearest wild approach to this form I have 
yet seen was exhibited by Mr. Ware last year to the Daffodil Committee. 
He had received it as collected wild near Saragossa, after which town 
it has been named. Two or three forms belonging, I believe, to this 
section were sent to me last summer by Mr. Alfred Tait, who collected 
them wild near Oporto. They are tall elegant flowers, with slender and 
much-twisted perianth divisions, not imbricated, and I think are new to 
cultivation. They may develope more when I have grown them longer. 
These double readily when planted in Mr. Tait’s garden, and the double 
form is an ugly monster. Major is rather ill defined as a section. 
Of the third section, minor, the assumed type, as recognised, I believe, 
by the Narcissus Committee ha9 only just now been identified in its wild 
slate; but its exact counterpart in all characters except size, N. 
minimus, is abundant on mountains in the north of Spain. The variety 
most common in gardens, now called nanus, though I shall presently give 
reasons for thinking that the name is wrong, abounds near Bayonne, 
where the French botanists call it minor ; but the recognised minor, with 
large lobes, and generally with free divisions of pirianth, was found in 
the Maritime Alps recently by Mr. Scrass Dickins m ar G asse. Concolorors 
and bicolorous forms of it grow there not in separate clumps, but mixed 
up together in the same clumps, and I have had this season two or three 
boxes of flowers of it sent to study. 
Of the bicolor section the characters are—The leaves thick in substance, 
very broad and large, not acute or tapering, but rounded off suddenly at 
the ends ; it is late-flowering, the corona is cylindrical or ventricose, 
slightly lobed, and the perianth divisions often large and loose. Two 
distinct wild forms are well known—1, Lorifolius, which is found in the 
Pyrenees in North Portugal, and (probably in the Apennines ; and 2, 
N. muticus of the French botanist Gay, a very distinct Daffodil, cover¬ 
ing hundreds of acres on the French side of the Pyrenees near Gavarnie, 
and in other parts. It is so distinct in its character that Haworth, 
though he had never seen living plants, assigned to it a separate genus 
called Pileus, and divided it into five species. This is the bicolor of some 
French local botanists, and we do not know yet any wild form which 
comes nearer the bicolor of gardens, though we may expect to find some. 
As regards muticus, which is sometimes called abscissus in English 
catalogues, the large broad leaves with rounded ends, the straight cylin¬ 
drical corona, its late flowering, and other characters claim for it a place 
