May 18, 1889. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
593 
NARCISSUS MUTICUS. 
If we eliminate from our English collections of Daf¬ 
fodils the number of forms that have been found in the 
late Mr. Leed’s old garden at Longford Bridge, and in 
one or two others in-the neighbourhood of Manchester, 
what a few we shall have left! For some years I have 
thought that there was more mystery locked up about 
these same collections than we shall probably probe. 
Take for instance Haworth’s Bicolor and the Bicolor 
section. Haworth’s plant is considered a species, yet 
I fancy it can be produced between N. muticus and 
Mr. Maw’s form. Bicolor grandis (a garden plant 
with a Latin name !) has the same Muticus appearance, 
and I believe Emperor, Empress, both the Camms, and 
probably Horsefieldi, are of Muticus origin, because 
when once a patient enthusiast gets possession of Mr. 
Maw’s Bicolor, with Muticus and its various forms, Rugi- 
lobus, &c., using the pollen of Poeticus poetarum, he 
is on the road to form a famous collection, be it that of 
Longford Bridge or otherwise. 
On reading over the Conference List of 1884, I find 
that Muticus is put into a sub-section of Pseudo- 
Narcissus, in five varieties, and Mr. Baker’s attention 
is called to it with a suggestion that it may be 
placed in the Lorifolius group. Is it not strange that 
a Daffodil, supposed now to be one of the parents of 
our very finest forms, should 
have been so little known 
up to that period, that the 
Kew authority had to be 
overhauled on the subject ? 
Yet I have no doubt the 
trio of amateurs residing 
near Manchester must have 
known the plant well and 
largely used it, because each 
of them arrived at the same 
results in raising garden 
forms, as is evidenced by 
our best bicolors. 
I wish now to take up 
the Bernardi and Nelsoni 
groups, and by way of pre¬ 
face let me state that Nelsoni 
minor pure and simple, 
and a few plants very like 
Macleayi, have turned up 
in my garden among im¬ 
ported Bernardi bulbs, and 
the latter natural hybrids 
from the Pyrenees we all 
know are produced between 
Poeticus and Muticus. Had 
it been a better form of 
Poeticus, such as Poetarum, 
we should have Nelsoni 
aurantius and Nelsoni major, 
with Mrs. C. J. Backhouse 
(which was placed in the 
Conference List of 1884 
with the Incomparabilis, 
but now included in the 
Nelsoni group) ; indeed, I 
might include Princess Mary 
likewise as of Bernardi origin. Here is certainly the 
“missing link.” Fancy Nelsoni minor among wild 
Bernardi bulbs ! and have not all the shortened bicolors 
got the Muticus pose, clipped trunk, and sturdy habit, 
besides its foliage and late-blooming character ? Yet 
up to the year 1884, we had but little knowledge or 
experience of Pyrenean bicolor Daffodils, the first true 
account of them being that given by Mr. Dod in the 
Gardeners’ Chronicle, May 10th, 1884, with illustrations. 
Is it possible that prior to the age of steam and the 
advancement of civilisation, a Burbidge, a Barr, or a 
Jos Maria could have been in the ranks of our army 
with Wellington when fighting his way through Spain 
and Portugal in 1812 and 1813 ? We read how the 
campaign was re-opened with 70,000 British and 
Portuguese troops, in the month of May, at which period 
Narcissus muticus was in full bloom. On the 12th of 
June the troops reached Burgos, the French retreating 
to the Ebro, Wellington turning their position by 
crossing the latter near its source, and then, with 
masterly tactical skill, occupying the Bayonne road 
with all the passes of the Pyrenees, in a few days after¬ 
wards laying siege to Pampuluna and San Sebastian, 
until both places surrendered in the following autumn. 
This is positive proof that great bodies of British 
subjects fought their way from Spain into France 
through the “ home of wild Daffodils,” at a time when 
the wolves, bears, and brigands would have made it 
impossible for small parties to have travelled through 
those parts. May there not have been a Jos Maria in 
the ranks, who, for aught we know, after “Bony” 
had been done with at Waterloo, settled down as a 
pensioner in the neighbourhood of Manchester, and who, 
perhaps, working as a garden man in after years, 
when work was over— 
“. . . . kindly bade to stay, 
Sat by the fire, and talk’d the night away ; 
Wept o’er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done, 
Shouldered his cratch, and showed how fields were won.” 
Were his services and stories within reach of a Leeds 
or a Backhouse, one can imagine their enthusiasm on 
being told about the millions of Daffodils in the 
Pyrenees ; and the question naturally forces itself upon 
one’s mind, Did those men get seeds or bulbs of wild 
Daffodils and keep the secret? I believe they did, and 
I am led to this conclusion by finding Nelsoni minor 
in my garden among imported wild bulbs. 
I 'remember that my friend, Mr. Burbidge, when 
writing in a contemporary, about the year 1883, gave in 
illustration a bloom of Narcissus Bernardi, saying it 
had got a Nelsoni look about it, and he was right ; and 
but that the Poeticus form found on the Pyrenees is of 
a weak description, Mr. Burbidge’s figure might have 
been Nelsoni aurantius, and its clipped trunk.—IF. B. 
Hartland, Cork. 
of a curious variety in The Garden awl Forest named 
Medusa. I would here say that picture is not an 
exaggeration, nor is the description there given. 
Medusa, however, while very graceful and strikingly 
distinct, will not become popular, on account of its 
delicate constitution.— T. D. Hatfield,, Wellesley, 
Mass., April 30 th. 
-- 
DOUBLE HARDY PRIMROSES. 
Is it a wild sport ? That was the question I put to 
myself, at the Crystal Palace, on Saturday last, when 
Mr. W. G. Head showed me the leaves and flowers of 
a double yellow Primrose—identical in all respects with 
our cultivated double yellow variety—which Mr. 
George Nixon had sent from Easton Hall, Grantham. 
Mr. Nixon said that he had plucked flowers and leaves 
from a plant he found growing in the woods on the 
estate of Sir PI. A. H. Cholmeley, Bart., and it must 
have made a charming tuft when Mr. Nixon found it, 
for he stated, in a letter accompanying the flowers, that 
it had sixty-five blossoms. Now this looks very much 
as if the common wild Primrose had developed into a 
double form. I scarcely think it likely anyone planted 
it there—such a thing of beauty would have had a 
place found it in the garden, and not be buried away 
in the woods. If a bond fide 
sport from the single to the 
double form, we may, I think, 
fairly assume that other 
double forms have originated 
in the same way.— It. D. 
Narcissus muticus. 
CHRYSANTHEMUM NOTES. 
Centenary Prizes at Birmingham. 
Chrysanthemum growers for exhibition will find in our 
advertising columns this week, an announcement made 
by the managers of the Birmingham and Midland 
Counties Chrysanthemum Society, of their intention to 
celebrate the centenary of the Chrysanthemum by 
offering a very handsome series of prizes, amounting to 
£54 10s., for competition in one class for forty-eight 
blooms, at their next November exhibition. The 
central position of Birmingham, the favourable date 
selected, November 20th, and the remarkably liberal 
character of the prizes offered, form such a happy 
combination of fortuitous circumstances that cannot 
fail to bring the leading growers together from all parts. 
Our Birmingham friends should reap a rich reward for 
their spirited enterprise. 
The New American Varieties. 
After reading your remarks on “Hirsute Chry¬ 
santhemums ” at p. 512, I could not help thinking 
that the folly of exaggeration was not altogether an 
American weakness. Why, Messrs. Pitcher & Manda’s 
description of Mrs. Alpheus Hardy is quite conservative, 
mild or dull, as compared with the remarks published 
by the Messrs. Cannell in their new Floral Guide. I 
have seen the variety in question, and am growing it this 
year. Messrs. Pitcher & Manda’s description of it is 
fair and impartial. Y"ou have probably seen a picture 
In a back number of The 
Gardening World, March 
16tli, you made some in¬ 
teresting comments on the 
origin of double hardy Prim¬ 
roses. To-day I send you 
a few blooms of a double 
Primrose, which originated 
with me from seed saved 
from a single white Primrose. 
Some seven or eight years 
ago I had a few plants of a 
very good form of the single 
Primrose, and in colour 
approaching to white. As 
we mostly plant our Prim¬ 
roses and Polyanthuses in 
blocks of separate colours, I 
was anxious to increase the 
Primrose in question—seeing 
that it was likely to be a 
very desirable one for giving 
in the mass a decided effect 
in the massing system—and 
get up a stock of it more 
quickly than by waiting 
the yearly division of the 
plants. I therefore set aside 
a few of those having the 
best formed flowers, and 
saved them. 
Out of the batch of seedlings raised, the double form 
which I send for your inspection originated. After six 
or seven years cultivation and division of the old plants 
annually I have now got a good stock of it. But the 
most interesting point concerning it is that for the 
first time it has this year tried to throw up Polyanthus 
stems, though very weak ones with not more than three 
blooms at most on a stem. The greater number of 
flowers, however, on each plant adhere to the Primrose 
type, from which it was raised, a few blooms of which 
I also send you. Does this trying to form a Polyanthus 
umbel of flowers reveal Polyanthus blood, and if so, how 
did it get there ? The plants were seeded in a kitchen- 
garden border, far away from any Polyanthus plants, 
but in the same border there were several clumps of the 
double Lilac and the double white Primrose. 
In your interesting notes on the double forms above 
referred to, you ask, Are they real sports of nature’s 
own producing, or the outcome of the florist’s art in 
intercrossing and selecting ; or are they but the natural 
products of garden cultivation ? The double form in 
question is certainly not the outcome of the florist’s 
art, for the florist had nothing to do with its origin, 
and must therefore be a sport of nature’s own pro¬ 
ducing, and further developed by garden cultivation, 
for the blooms are certainly more double now than 
they were -when first I picked it out of the batch 
of flowering seedling plants.— J. Kipling, Knebworth. 
[The raising of a new double Primrose is exceedingly 
