DAFFODILS IN 1953-54 
The past season was perhaps as near normal as 
we often have here, with plentiful amounts of 
moisture, and no extremely severe cold. Rather 
sharp frosts during January served to hold the 
Daffodils in check, although they were not of 
sufficent intensity to keep the Polyanthus Prim- 
roses from showing good blooms all winter except 
for a few days at a time. In passing, it may be 
reported that the Primroses were of quite excep- 
tional quality, the blues and pinks in particular 
showing advancement over those grown in pre- 
vious years. There has been a tremendous change 
made in stems, blossom size, and color compared 
with Primroses available 10 or 15 years ago. 
Colors are becoming brighter and cleaner, and 
blossoms with twice the area of a silver dollar are 
not uncommon. 
The Daffodil season opened as usual with Nar- 
cissus bulbocodium x Nylon the first blossom 
opening about Thanksgiving Day, with the last 
ones staying until after the middle of January. As 
this is written, January 25th, 1955, this same little 
Daffodil has been in flower for ten weeks. It is 
growing in pots in an unheated greenhouse. N. 
bulbocodium Romieuxii was next to bloom, pre- 
ceding N. minimus (asturiensis) and N. cyclamin- 
eus. Both the latter are exquisite little gems, but 
neither increases much except from seed, and 
this is hard to come by, much of that procurable 
not germinating. Most of the bulbs of these spe- 
cies offered by the trade are wild bulbs collected 
when very green and are so devitalized that if 
they survive, their performance is perfunctory, 
at least for the first season. Even well grown 
bulbs may sulk. Years ago these two species were 
crossed in England and a resulting hybrid named 
N. x minicycla. Doubtless this cross has been re- 
peated many times, and last year we bloomed 
a number of seedlings from this parentage, many 
of them being very lovely elfin things with con- 
siderable variation in form and size as might be 
imagined in view of the lack of uniformity in one 
of the parents, N. minimus. It is doubtful if they 
will be very long lived, and they ennot be re- 
produced readily, if at all, but if the species 
parents can be produced in numbers, the cross 
may be readily remade as occasion demands. 
Calls for the little Daffodils become more fre- 
quent and we are trying to grow a number of 
these, and find that some of the hybrids increase 
much more readily than certain of the species. 
One of the first to open is BAMBI, a little bi-color 
trumpet. Two or three cyclamineus hybrid clones 
appear on the scene at about the same time. 
Even though there was comparatively little 
cold weather, Daffodils seemed loath to push 
their heads through the soil, as though recalling 
the severe freeze and consequent injury to the 
stems and foliage a few years back, when they 
rushed the season and were in lush growth, only 
to be assailed by unmerciful winds and frigid 
temperatures. Only a few varieties opened by the 
first of March, among these being FORERUNNER, 
MAKE UP, and a few cyclamineus hybrids such 
as FEBRUARY GOLD, MARCH SUNSHINE, MITE, 
and PEEPING TOM. There is surely room for 
more flowers belonging to this latter coterie, and 
already here to bolster it are the lovely trio 
from Mr. C. F. Coleman, CHARITY MAY, DOVE 
WINGS, and JENNY, which should furnish incen- 
tive for further work. Unfortunately, stock of 
these is very limited at present. 
Bulbs of the miniatures were hot water steri- 
lized along with most of the other bulbs a year 
ago and apparently the timing was not quite cor- 
rect as several of them gave few, or no blooms 
at all. On the whole, bulbs treated early are more 
apt to show flower distortion the following spring; 
treated later, they frequently give “blind” buds; 
and very late treating may injure the root plate, 
so that in extreme cases, bulbs may lie dormant 
a year. With normal treatment, most varieties 
show little. if any injury the first season, and 
thereafter appear to have increased vigor for a 
year or two. In any case, the little fellows ap- 
parently did not take kindly to our timing of the 
treatment, as some sulked for a while, but gave 
better than usual bulbs at digging time. 
The species, N. minor, N. nanus, and N. pumilus 
are attractive miniature trumpets, the double 
form of the latter, N. pumilus plenus being a 
curious little double flower with many long nar- 
row perianth segments, part green and part yel- 
low. WEE BEE is a smooth textured one resem- 
bling N. nanus and reputed to be a sport from it. 
GOLDSITHNEY is a bright yellow large cupped 
miniature, having rather larger flowers than the 
others just mentioned. Then among the others of 
this class there is MUSTARDSEED, a very small 
clear yellow, and NOR NOR, a taller larger one of 
light yellow, whose perianth becomes lighter and 
the crown deeper in color as it ages. 
One of the most unique of the triandrus hybrids 
is ROSEDOWN, a rather tall yellow flower with 
globular orange cup, occasionally coming with 
20 
two blossoms on a stem. A great favorite with us 
is APRIL TEARS, with its clusters of soft yellow 
drooping reflexed blossoms. Somewhat like it 
but with shorter stems and earlier blooming is 
HAWERA. Lighter colored and apparently a little 
less vigorous is PEASE-BLOSSOM which is classed 
as a jonquil hybrid. BEBOP, BOBBYSOXER, and 
SUN DISC are N. juncifolius rupicola hybrids 
and are enchanting little flat rounded flowers 
with flaring almost flat cups. Somewhat larger 
and with considerable orange red coloring in the 
cups are LA BELLE and LINTIE. 
EILEEN and ELISE examining FIRE CHIEF 
It is rather seldom that we get away to visit 
other Daffodil gardens as there are so many 
demands here during the flowering season. We 
are usually favored with a visit by Mr. Frank 
Reinelt who is much better known for his breed- 
ing work with Begonias and Delphiniums and 
more recently with Primroses, but he is an avid 
Daffodil enthusiast as well. This year, he was 
again accompanied by his charming wife, and 
they brought with them Dr. Campbell Duncan of 
Tasmania who timed his trip to America to see 
the Daffodils. A most pleasant and congenial 
gentleman, he is a perfectionist and is interested 
primarily in Daffodils of ideal show form. It was 
a joy, indeed, to visit with him and to note the 
intense interest manifested in observing every 
bloom. The greater part of the day was occupied 
in checking through the seedling plantings, 
searching for the much desired, but always very 
elusive, perfect Daffodil. Were it possible to per- 
suade the most perfect bloom of each year to re- 
produce itself consistently and exactly under all 
climatic conditions, and to manifest the vigor 
and good growth habits of some of the older 
popular varieties whose chief merits lie in their 
performance, we might think all would be well. 
Yet, has it not been often said, “Anticipation is 
greater joy than realization?” 
Coming back to the factual realm, we found 
much to enjoy, and heartily disagree with the 
dictum that Daffodil fanciers must undergo a 
month of disappointment after eleven months of 
anticipation. Were this literally true, they surely 
would eventually be overtaken with discourage- 
ment and would find some other field in which to 
devote their attention and energy. Man being 
much less than perfect must find enjoyment in 
that which has not reached the zenith of perfec- 
tion. Perhaps the keenest enjoyment of the sea- 
son here came with the blooming of a series of 
seedlings of which GREEN ISLAND was the seed 
parent and a RUBRA X SYLVIA O’NEIL seedling, 
now named BITHYNIA, furnished the pollen. 
Several years ago we wrote of the beautiful 
series out of RUBRA X SYLVIA O’NEIL of which 
BITHYNIA has been perhaps the best. Inciden- 
tally, this cross has been repeated and we are 
still blooming nice things from this ancestry, one 
of them being among Dr. Duncan’s favorites when 
here. The new lot, with GREEN ISLAND incorpo- 
rated in the pedigree produced what we believe 
to be the finest lot of seedlings that we have yet 
flowered. They came at the end of the flowering 
season and really were the climax of the year. 
Nearly every one had large flowers; and tall 
stems, good poise, smooth texture and good sub- 
stance, with nearly perfect form, characterized 
several of this lot. Perianths were very rounded, 
smooth, and white, while the crown varied from 
nearly flat to large bowl-shaped ones, with rims 
of lemon to apricot-buff. From CHINESE WHITE 
pollenized by a sister seedling of BITHYNIA, 
came another group of lovely flowers, second 
only to the group just described, and only slightly 
less interesting was a large group of several 
hundred from RUBRA X CHINESE WHITE. Only 
a few of the latter group were outstanding, but 
virtually all were of good quality; most had tall 
stems with good poise inherited from RUBRA, 
with larger flower size, and colors intermediate 
between the parents. 
We have come to regard GREEN ISLAND and 
several of the SILVER COIN derivatives produced 
by Mr. Guy Wilson as of utmost importance in 
breeding for exhibition flowers if used with 
things like RUBRA. As in the past years, three 
or four seedlings from GREEN ISLAND X CHI- 
NESE WHITE, and the reciprocal cross, were 
again among our finest flowers. GLENSHANE 
has proven a potent parent and used on GREEN 
ISLAND produced several years ago a flower, in 
form, much like itself, but with a cup nearly 
apple blossom pink. There were several lovely 
flowers of it this year borne on fine tall stems. 
A sister seedling with a most perfect, rounded, 
glistening white perianth of highest quality had a 
good sized, bowl shaped, white crown with a very 
narrow rim of salmon-rose. GLENSHANE X 
MABEL TAYLOR produced numbers of pinks, 
some of considerable intensity of coloring, but 
nearly all quite rough. Inbreeding a few of these 
should bring out some good qualities in another 
generation. FOGGY DEW tends to transmit its 
fluted, ruffled crown to a percentage of its chil- 
dren, and when used on SERAGLIO gave im- 
mense flowers on very tall stems, with broad 
rounded perianths and frilled cups. 
CHINESE WHITE is such a beautiful flower, 
and of such perfect form that we love it just as 
it is, but most everyone would like it better if it 
would hold its head up better on first opening. 
With this improvement in mind, we crossed it 
on SHIRLEY NEALE. The resulting seedlings 
had better poise in some instances and had ex- 
tremely tall stems but they lost most of the re- 
finement and character exemplified by CHINESE 
WHITE. Still other flowers lovely for cutting or 
exhibition came from ALBERNI BEAUTY X CHI- 
NESE WHITE and from ANGELINE X SYLVIA 
O’NEILL, the latter group especially producing 
frilled cups margined with lemon, gold, or orange- 
salmon. 
On the whole, pinks were not of as good color 
as a year ago. These are given perhaps more at- 
tention than their merits justify, but advances 
are being made and breeders look on these as a 
means to an end. Not the best in color intensity, 
yet certainly one of the finest in flower quality 
was a seedling from KENMARE X DAWNGLOW 
with silken smooth, well formed white perianth, 
and a well proportioned crown of near trumpet 
measurement, opening with a yellow cast but 
soon becoming an unusual lilac-toned pink. Its 
four flowers were of uniform quality and color. 
Several seedlings from INTERIM X MABEL 
TAYLOR continue to manifest distinctiveness in 
intense orange-salmon and salmon-rose crowns, 
one of the older ones being introduced this year 
as ROSE RIBBON. MABEL TAYLOR X PINK 
LACE produced a series of very frilled cupped 
flowers in varying shades of pink but for the 
most part, with perianths of indifferent quality. 
Among the best in both form and color was one 
derived from CORALIE X DAWNGLOW. A few 
years ago, several blossoms of both BROUGH- 
SHANE and KANCHENJUNGA were pollenized 
by DAWNGLOW and several of the resulting 
seedlings were very large. of quite good form, 
and with pale pink trumpets indicating good pos- 
sibilities from another generation in this line of 
breeding. GREEN ISLAND X SHOT TOWER pro- 
duced an extraordinary group of flowers with 
large fluted and flanged crowns in shades of 
cream, apricot, buff and pale salmon; while 
INTERIM X SHOT TOWER gave perhaps the larg- 
est pink of good form. Our variety, RADIATION, 
gave finer blooms than we had heretofore seen 
and gave a good account of itself as a parent. The 
little pink tinted jonquil, CHERIE, has always 
been a very appealing flower, and since having 
it we have been intrigued with the possibility of 
getting pinker jonquils. With this end in mind, 
WiLD ROSE was crossed with N. jonquilla sim- 
plex, and among the resulting seedlings were 
several with pinkish crowns, but virtually all were 
deficient in substance, a fault that may be out- 
grown as they bloom from full size bulbs. In this 
connection, another jonquil cross might be men- 
tioned, one in which NARVIK served as the seed 
parent, giving some delightful little flowers with 
satin smooth yellow perianths, and a few with 
nice orange crowns. 
