SEPTEMBER I, 1902. 
THE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER. 
i) 
flowers than is to be seen in the trumpets. 
“Gloria Mundi,”  ‘‘Sensation,” Orphee,”’ 
‘Flora Wilson,” ‘Conspicuus,” “ Auto- 
crat,” “‘Cynosure,” ‘Stella Superba,” and 
many more are to be seen in good health and 
vigorous blooms; and even the delicate 
“Mary Anderson” has been — successfully 
imported. 
Division C is known as the Burbidgei and 
Poeticus section. Crimson’ edges, orange 
cups, scarlet crowns make all the members 
of this division desirable, and as they usually 
bloom later than other Daffodils a continua- 
tion of -Wordsworth’s- pleasure-filling sight 
may be enjoyed even in our sunny climes. 
This article would be incomplete if the 
“Bulbocodium” Daffodils were not men- 
tioned. They are known by the homely 
name of “ Hoop-Petticoat,” and the cups or 
trumpets are very wide in proportion to the 
thread-like segments of the perianth. Of 
them all “ Monophylla” is the most beauti- 
ful. It is wild in Algiers, covering the slopes 
of a hill there with its pure white blooms. 
Here it should either be grown in pots, or in 
a sunny position protected from cold winds. 
It is a difficult bulb to import alive, but it 
more than repays the extra trouble it re- 
quires. 
Reflexed Daffodils are those of which the 
perianth is bent back like a Cyclamen. 
“Johnston’s Queen of Spain” and ‘ Cycla- 
mineus” are the two representatives in the 
trumpet section ; both rather difficult to keep 
alive, so far as my experience goes. 
“Triandrus albus” and its relatives “’T. con- 
color,” ‘fT calathinus,” ‘‘'T. pulchellus” are 
the other forms of reflexed Daffodils. They 
are best grown in pots, and are difficult to 
import alive. Also they do not bear removal 
from one part of the State to,another very 
well. ‘These and the Hoop-Petticoat can be 
grown from seed, two or three years sufficing’ 
‘to obtain plants of blooming size. Other 
Daffodils require from eight to ten years to 
bloom from seed. 4 2 
Double Daffodils are very charming. 
“Van Sion” is perhaps the most familiar ; 
and it has a funny habit of coming green 
instead of golden yellow. Some say it should- 
then be lifted and divided. ‘“ Butter and 
Eggs,” ‘“Codlins and Cream,” ‘“ Orange 
Phoenix” are quite hardy in this climate, 
and the latter is a picture of beauty when in 
good bloom. “Cernuus Plenus” is very 
difficult to obtain. It must have shade, 
gritty soil, and no manure. It is double 
white, and rather expensive. ‘Queen Anne’s 
Jonquil,” ‘Rip Van Winkle,” and ‘“Scoticus 
Double” are all worth growing, while the 
double Poeticus, or ‘ Gardenix Narcissus,” 
is a deservedly popular and beautiful bloom. 
—J. A. STUCKEY. 
DousiinG In CycLaMEN.—A double flower 
s by no means uncommon in Cyclamen, but 
a persistently double form is somewhat rare. 
Seed will not be readily produced, but it is 
not very likely that all the stamens have be- 
come petaloid. See that the flowers are 
fertilised by their own pollen and remove . 
the plant from the influence of the single 
forms. 
DAFFODILS AND 
6 E that hath two cakes of bread, let him 
sell one of them for flowers of Narcissus ; 
for bread is the food or the body, but Nar: 
cissus is the food of the soul.” These are 
the words of Mahomet, and they have been 
taken to heart by Englishmen, to whom 
Daffodils, that “come before the swallow 
dares,” and Narcissi, the poets’ type of 
maiden purity and beauty, have become of 
considerable commercial importance, and 
also as beloved for their beauty and frag- 
rance as the Rose itself. 
For the Daffodil is essentially an English 
flower, in the same sense as cricket and. foot- 
ball are English games. In Australia and 
New Zealand, in Canada and the United 
States, Daffodils rank with the most favoured 
of flowers, whereas in Continental countries, 
if we except Holland, they find scarcely any 
admirers. At a great exhibition held in 
Paris a year or two ago, a magnificent dis- 
play of Daffodils made by several English 
specialists, was passed almost unnoticed. 
Of all English plants—and the true 
Daffodil (N. Pseudo-narcissus) is wild in 
copses and moist woods throughout England 
—none have been in such constant favour as 
the Daffodil, which was a favourite garden 
flower with our ancestors, and especially as 
the flower for making garlands. The Rey. 
Canon Ellacombe, in his delightful book, 
“The Plantlore of Shakspeare,” says it has 
been the favourite of all English poets from 
the time of Shakspeare, and even before, 
for Spenser spoke of “the green strowed 
round with Daffodowndillies.” 
The botanical name adopted by Linnzeus 
for the whole family of Daffodils is of mytho- 
logical origin. Narcissus was a beautiful 
youth who preferred gazing at his own reflec- 
tion in the water to the charms of the nymph 
Echo, and as a punishment for his vanity he 
was changed by Nemesis, the goddess of 
justice and punishment, into.a flower : 
« And looking for his corse they only found 
A rising stalk with yellow blossoms crowned.” 
There are about twenty species of Nar- 
cissus, and they are nearly all European, a 
few extending into Northern Africa, 
Persia, Cashmere, India, and even into 
China and Japan. Only about one-third of 
this number have any horticultural value, by 
far the majority of the popular sorts being 
hybrids or seedlings of garden origin. Thesé 
are the progeny of N. Pseudo-narcissus, N. 
poeticus, N. Tazetta, N. Jonquilla, N. triandus 
and N. Bulbocodium. They ‘all intercross 
freely, and out of .them breeders have 
obtained the hosts of named varieties which 
add so much to the delight of the garden in 
spring. 
Daffodils are first cousins to Snowdrops 
and Snowflakes, and this family relationship 
is evident in the bulbs, leaves, flowers to 
some extent, and fruits ; the three genera are 
also alike in their habit of flowering early in 
the year. _ The character which distinguishes 
all Daffodils from other hardy flowers is the 
corona, or crown, formed by the prolonga- 
tion of the tubular portion of the flower. 
HOW TO GROW THEM 
GBS 
By W. WATSON, 
or Krw, Lonpon. 
Botanists have divided the species into 
groups, according to the length and shape 0 
this corona, as follows : 
Group I, MaGNICORONATI 
or “Coffee-cups’— example, N. 
narcissus. 
Group. II. 
crowned) © or “ Tea.cups”—example, 
incomparabilis. 
Group III. 
crowned) or ‘Saucers”—examp. 
cus. } 
Group II. is of hyrid-origin, its parents 
being Groups I. and III. 
Although Narcissus is the accepted 
botanical name for the whole of these plants, 
it is also used popularly in a more restrictive 
sense, and whilst we speak of them collecti- 
vely as Daffodils, to be correct we should 
apply this term only to Group I., and that of 
Narcissus to Group III. When, however, 
we come to the hybrids between these two 
groups, we are met with the same difficulty 
as besets all attempts to set nature in order. 
There is still more restricted use to these 
two terms—Narcissus for the Poet’s Narcissi 
simply, and Daffodil for the common Daffo- 
downdilly of our copses and hedgerows. 
There are at least five hundred 
distinct sorts recognised by experts and cata- 
logued by the great dealers in them, among 
whom Messrs P. Barr & Sons, of Covent 
Garden, are the acknowledged leaders. This 
army of yarieties has been raised by breeders 
chiefly within the last thirty years, for in 
1870 there were only about fifty varieties 
grown. The enormous increase has _been 
due first to an.increase in the popularity of 
the Daffodils, brought about very largely by 
Mr. Peter Barr, the Daffodil king ; Mr. I. W. 
(large-crowned) 
Pseudo- 
MEDIOCOROEATI (ned: 
ParvicoronatTi _ (small- 
Burbidge, m.a., the high-priest of the — 
Daffodil fraternity ; Mr. J. G. Baker, F-R.S., 
the botanical specialist; the Rev. G. H. 
Engleheart, the most successful breeder of 
Daffodils, and the Dutch nurseryman, Mr 
de Graaf of Leiden. 
The praises of Narcissi have been sung by 
the greatest of poets for ages, and the flowers 
have been loved by the gardeners of this. 
country for at least three hundred years. 
Shakspeare, however, never saw any flowers 
such as “Emperor,” ‘Glory of Leiden,” 
“Ellen Willmott,” “ Maggie May,” or “ Will 
Scarlet.” By the side of these his Daffadilly 
is as a stage-coach to a steam-engine. The 
development of  flower-gardening in this 
country during the last fifty years has kept 
pace with man’s taste and handiwork in 
other departments where he has found material 
he could mould to his will. What has been 
done is well told by Mr. Engleheart : 
“The fearlessness of the Daffodil in our 
rough English spring—March is ‘the roar- 
ing moon of Daffodils’-—has made it pre- 
minently an English flower, and the hands 
of Englishmen. have fashioned it to its 
present beauty. Over 250 years ago Parkin- 
son had anticipated Mr. Peter Barr in 
employing Pyrenean ‘root-collectors’ and 
described some hundred kinds of Daffodil. 
le N. poeti-. 
