. 
Ocr. 1, 1903 
We have but just spoken of these golden 
creatures as “homely” blossoms, and some 
of our readers looking round on our nur- 
series and flower stalls may naturally start 
at the epithet, and say that it is surely the 
most inappropriate in the world. Well, 
for many a long day past, for fifty years or 
go, a man’s art no doubt has concerned. it- 
self much with these blossoms, has wrought 
strange marvels with them, at last has set 
them incontestably amid the very aristo- 
cracy of flowers. _ Fifty years ago away in 
Yorkshire was Mr. Backhouse, in the south 
was Mr. Leeds, enamored of their beauty, 
prescient of their possibilities, patiently 
and unknown to one another with curious 
art raising strange new forms, large and 
THE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER. 
are for ever so honorably associated? 
Granted that it is in Portugal and the 
borders of Spain, that the most prolific na- 
tural home of the Daffodil must be located 
(Gif we except North Africa with its pecu- 
liar polyanthus or bunch-flowered form: of 
the species, the Narcissus Tazetta), whence 
through Asia Minor into China this ex- 
quisite family has in the course of nature 
spread; granted this—yet what can we 
claim for our own land as indigenous, 
claim as the parents from which the ear- 
lier cultivators with patience and subtle, 
art started on the work of development and 
variation, now grown. to so marvellous a- 
pitch? We, too, as well as Portugal or 
Africa, have our inheritance ; for centuries 
be, and does not recall other Daffodils 
there, rich yellow Daffodils, and white ones 
stained at their” heart with pale gold, and 
other white ones stained rich orange at _ 
their heart? And when he has asked the 
cottager the names of these, what delight- 
ful, simple, old-world, descriptive names he 
has had given him—‘Butter and Eggs,” 
“Codlins and Cream,” “Eggs and Bacon!” 
Whence came these varieties, time out of 
“mind the spring beauties of our old-world 
gardens? Ah! their lives no record of that. 
If we ask our botanist, he but shrugs his 
shoulders and replies, “Probably they were 
natural hybrids.” It is a pretty belief, 
and at least no one can overthrow it; as 
we saida moment ago, here are these 
NARCISSUS ‘‘ MADAME DE GRAAFE.” 
NARCISSUS GLORIA MUNDI (Incomparabilis). 
This is one of the largest of White Trumpet Daffodils, and a flower 
of delicate beauty and ycod substance; we consider it ranks as The 
Queen of White Trumpet Daffodils, and for grace and elegance of form 
A glorious flower with fine bold clear rich yellow perianth, large cup 
much expanded and very heavily stained orange-scarlet, handsome aud 
ivis perhaps unsurpassed, The whole flower is of a soft pure white, but 
on firss opening the trumpet has just a shade of soft pale primrose 
It is a strong grower and free 
bloomer, and equally suitable for pots or the open border, ht. 16 in. 
First-class Certificate R.H.S.—From Peter Barr's Catal gue. 
which adds to the charm of the flower. 
splendid. Then into their labors, some 
three decades since, entered another enthu- 
siast, Mr. Peter Barr, to carry on their 
work, to develop it to finer issues, to infect 
the world, if one may so say, with his own 
enthusiasm, and to ravish us amid his wide 
fields at Long Ditton with stretches of Daf- 
fodils and Narcissi year by year blossoming 
into fresh marvels of size and shape and 
color. We shall return to these develop- 
ments directly; for the wonder and 
beauty of them are fresh in our memory, 
and we would have others share, if pos- 
sible, in the delight they have given us.. 
But what was the original stock that set 
Mr. Backhouse and Mr. Leeds on the work, 
with which for horticulturists their names 
in England her native Narcissi have 
quietly grown and been loved alike by poet 
and by peasant; have, too, if one may use 
the expression, played at art amongst 
themselves, showing us of their own. accord 
without human interference what virtues 
and possibilities were latent in them. We 
are told by those learned in. their natural 
history that England may boast three in- 
digenous kinds of the great family of Nar- 
cissi, the pale, low-growing single Daffodil, 
ths richer, more imposing double Daffodil 
and later in the springtime, in the “merry 
month of May,’ the true Narcissus (Nar- 
cissus poeticus), the very poet’s Narcissus. 
But who that has sunned himself in an old 
English garden, a cottage garden it may 
striking, extra fine, strong grower, ht. 18 in. 
cet ficates R.H.S. and Midland Daffodil Society. 
' doubt the finest yellow Incomparatilis with stained cup yet raised fand 
isanoble flower either for th 
Peter Barr’s Catalogue. 
Awarded first-claas 
This is w.,hou 
e flower garden or for cutting.—Fromt 
homely flowers of ours, the Poet’s Narcissus 
and the Daffodils, playing at art with one 
another, and to such charming results! 
But from the dim ages, when all that 
flourished in the land were Lent Lilies and 
the Poet's Daffodil, to this year of grace 
1899—from the cottage gardens with their 
“Codlins and Cream/’ to that veritable 
Paradisus Narcissorum, Messrs. Barr’s nur- 
series at Long Ditton, is a far cry. As the 
train runs out beyond Surbiton, the eyes 
of every traveller must have been. caught 
and enchained by those stretches of white, 
and. sulphur, and gold that cover the land 
on his left, now glistening in the sun, now 
subdued into a pearl and promise mist over 
the earth at twilight. Unsatisfied with a 
