~*~ 
THE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER 
SEPTEMBER 1, 1902. 
si Daffodils. =< 
Group of Daffodils. 
SE EW flowers rival the Daffodil in popularity, 
and few are more frequently mentioned 
in English literature. That they were known 
and appreciated centuries ago is evident from 
the lines in “A Winter’s Tale,” Act IV., 
Scene 3 :— 
_ Daffodils 
That come before the swallow dares; and take 
The winds of March with beauty. 
And, according to John Keats, they are re- 
sponsible for the old legend of Narcissus and 
Echo :— 
What first inspired a bard of old to sing” 
Narcissus pining o’er the untainted spring ? 
In some délicious ramble he had found 
A little space with boughs all woven round, 
And in’ the midst of all a clearer pool 
Than e’er reflected in its pleasant cool 
The blue sky, here and there serenely peeping 
Through tendril wreaths fantastically creeping. 
Andon the bank a lonely flower he spied, 
A meek and forlorn flower, with nought of pride, 
Drooping its beauty o’er the watery clearness 
To woo its own sad image into nearness. 
Gay draws a moral lesson from the flower :— 
Let fair Narcissus warn each female breast 
That beauty’s but a transient good at best. 
But Wordsworth more cheerily sang :— 
I wandered lonely as a cloud — 
That floats on high o’er vale and hills, 
When all at once I saw a crowd, 
A host of golden Daffodils, 
_ Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 
Alas! where is such a sight to be found in 
Group of Narcissus Tazetta. 
these southern States? Residents in the 
hills around Adelaide, gardeners of Mace- 
don, the Blue Mountains, and all the cooler 
districts of these States might have a similar 
experience to the poet’s if they would take 
the trouble to utilise their advantages. 
That the Daffodil will grow and thrive 
even in our climate is evident from the num- 
bers of these flowers to be found in our 
streets late in August, or early in September. 
The season this year has been unfavourable 
‘to their early development. 
Many people are perplexed as to the diffe- 
rence between a Narcissus and a Daffodil. 
It consists chiefly in the: number of flowers 
borne on a stem. Narcissus is the family 
name, Daffodil the title given to a section of 
the genus in very early times. For garden- 
ing purposes, Narcissus is the name by which 
those bulbs are known which have many 
flowers on one stem, like the Polyanthus. 
Daffodil refers to those bulbs which usually 
bear but one flower on each stem. In this 
- State the bunch-headed Narcissus bloom be- 
fore the Daffodil. Of them the best known 
are Paper-white, Dubius, Paniz-zianus (a 
small but beautiful flower), Grand Soleil 
d’Or, Maximus, and Double Roman. They 
succeed in any ordinary garden soil, and once 
planted take care of themsélves. The most 
desirable are those in which the perianth 
segments overlap each other, as in Grand 
Soleil d’Or. A common but less valuable 
7 
type has the segments divided and the petals 
pointed, while they are limp and flabby in 
texture. 
Daffodils are divided into three sections, 
according to the length of the corona, or 
“trumpet,” as it is called. Division A has 
the segments of the perianth and the trumpet 
of equal, or nearly equal, length ; ‘4 
Division B has the perianth segments half 
or three-fourths as long as the crown, while 
C has a crown so small that in “Sequin” it 
is like a ring on the perianth. 
Division A contains some splendid flowers, 
many of them so expensive that most of us 
will have .to do without the sight of 
“Monarch,” ‘Lord Roberts,” ‘‘ Weardale 
Perfection,” &c. But many of the cheap 
trumpet Daffodils are very beautiful, 
“Golden Spur,” “ Obvallaris,” “Ard Righ,”? | 
“Emperor,” “Coronatus,” “Mrs. H.J. Elwes,” 
“ Helen Falconer,” ‘ Lobularis,” ‘ Minor,” 
and the dainty little “ Minimus” can either 
y 
be bought here or imported alive. ‘Mrs, 
Walter Ware,” “ Mrs. Thompson,” ‘* Madame 
de Graaff,” “Empress,” ‘“ Snowking,” ‘“ Prin- 
ceps,” and “ Bicolor” have been successfully 
imported and grown in this State, while 
“ Cernuus,” “William Goldring,” and many 
more which are the better for shade can be 
cultivated satisfactorily around Adelaide with 
very slight protection. 
Division B has considerably more orange 
and scarlet tones in the colouring of the 
