Identifying plants sometimes has to proceed through a process of elimination, this one is “not Mr Jinks” 1. A selection of the varieties that have been identified, largely through the work of Kate and Duncan Donald: ‘Seraglio’ (Small-cupped, pre-1926) 2 and, derived from it, ‘Dunkeld’ (Large-cupped, pre-1934) 3; ‘Nevis’ (Trumpet, pre-1915) 4, one of whose parents was the well-known ‘King Alfred’; ‘Coverack Perfection’ (Large-cupped, pre-1930) 5, one of the few commercially available Brodie varieties; ‘Therapia’ (Small-cupped, pre-1922) 6; ‘Loch Maree’ (Large-cupped, pre-1940) 7; ‘Smyrna’ (Poeticus, pre-1926) 8; ‘Fortune’s Knight’ (Large-cupped, pre-1930) 9; and ‘Cotterton’ (Large-cupped, pre-1936) 10.
In 1942, the RHS recognised the Brodie’s work by awarding him the Victoria Medal of Horticulture. He died the following year; an obituary noted that The Brodie had for daffodils a “love and enthusiasm … and a delightful schoolboy quality.” Many of his seedlings went to Northern Ireland, where they helped Guy Wilson and Lionel Richardson establish the province as a major centre for daffodil breeding. Only a very few are in commerce now, and only as bulbs from specialist suppliers.
When the National Trust for Scotland, a heritage conservation body, took over the estate in 1978 from the family, only a few of The Brodie’s daffodils could be recognized. Searches organised by the Trust brought over a hundred of them out from under cover, from a variety of sources, including from as far away as Australia. The Brodie had had a habit of naming varieties after other notable Scottish aristocratic houses, but comparatively few of his daffodils have turned up in their gardens—one had to be very keen on daffodils to plant bulbs named after one’s property, it seems. A former gardener, Leslie Forbes, in his mid-eighties, was able to label 156 varieties, and so by the early 1980s, a good collection had been assembled. Then disaster struck: the area where the daffodils were planted had not been mapped, so that when some children who were staying in one of the holiday cottages on the estate pulled out all the labels, there was no way of knowing which label belonged to which daffodil. The cultivars gathered here, several of them considered important, were once again effectively lost.
The situation at the time of writing, however, is a relatively optimistic one. Kate and Duncan Donald of Croft 16 have begun to identify the plants. While going about their work they pointed out in a report that the heritage value of the collection had been seriously compromised by the Trust’s planting of modern varieties to beautify the property for visitors. In addition they questioned the late Mr. Forbes’s record-keeping and some of his identifications—memory alone is rarely an accurate source of information on bulb naming. Great progress has been made, though, and a short-list of “wanted” missing varieties produced, with the hope that these can still be found in other Scottish gardens or overseas.
Another daffodil dynasty
THE WILLIAMSES OF CORNWALL
THE WILLIAMS FAMILY of Cornwall were originally from Wales but made a fortune in mining in this mineral-rich area. Like many other wealthy Cornish families they became deeply involved in gardening in the late nineteenth century, supporting the work of plant hunters, especially in the foothills of the Himalaya, in introducing a wide range of new species to horticulture. Although their gardens are now dominated by the towering magnolias, rhododendrons, and camellias so typical of this period, they also made a major contribution to daffodils. John Charles Williams (1861–1939), famous for Camellia ×williamsii, also bred daffodils and inspired a cousin, Percival D. Williams (1865–1935), to try his hand. P. D. Williams went on to become one of the greatest of all breeders, with four decades of productivity, beginning in 1895. His reputation is that of having an intuitive, almost mystical approach to breeding. He kept no records, or if he did, he kept them secret (his cousin claimed to have lost his camellia breeding records when his case was stolen on a night train to London, but there was always the suspicion that he never kept any for either, and the story of the theft was simply a cover). His great achievement was the Large-cupped ‘Carlton’ (pre-1927), the most widely sold daffodil of all time. This became renowned as a superb garden variety and an important cut flower for an industry that became increasingly important in Cornwall from the early twentieth century onwards; it is very disease-resistant, so it is still important. P. D. Williams was fond of naming his varieties after Cornish villages; common elements include Tre- (village), Pol- (pool), Pen- (hill or headland), and the names of ancient Celtic saints. Great ones from the approximately five hundred he named (and which are still commercially important) are ‘Beryl’ (Cyclamineus, pre-1907), ‘Trevithian’ (Jonquil, pre-1927), and ‘Cragford’ (Tazetta, pre-1930).
Williams became very friendly with Dutchman Matthew Zandbergen (1903–1990) after visiting his collection in the Netherlands. He asked him to be his Dutch agent, and the result was that many Williams varieties went on to become mainstays of the Dutch bulb industry. The Dutch liked his varieties because Williams was one of the first breeders who thought beyond simply the look of the flower and paid great attention to a good overall habit and strong stems—characteristics the hard-headed Dutch had already decided were crucial. As an example of this, Williams is reputed to have rejected Engleheart’s ‘Will Scarlett’ even though other breeders were using it in their crosses as much as possible; he apparently hated its narrow twisted perianths and saw no future in the plant. Apparently, he recommended that a daffodil should be judged by looking at the back first, as at the dinner table people would look at a table decoration from all sides.
Zandbergen was born on the daffodil farm of the de Graaff brothers, who were major breeders and growers of daffodils and other bulbs, where his father was manager. He would visit P. D. Williams three or four times a year and is known to have fallen for rugged Cornwall, so different to his own flat homeland. He is remembered as a first-class judge of daffodils and an effective international ambassador for the plant, warmly hosting growers from other countries at home, taking them to Dutch shows, and, being an inveterate traveller himself, always on the lookout for new varieties which growers back home could make use of. He bought plants from many breeders, but not all were forthcoming. In 1939 he visited Guy Wilson in Northern Ireland and offered him £100 for a good seedling. Getting “no” for an answer, he upped the price several more times but never shifted the canny Irish grower.
P. D. Williams’s son Michael (1903–1963) kept up the daffodil business and the links with Zandbergen. He bred ‘St. Keverne’, a classic yellow Large-cupped (pre-1934) that had good resistance to the basal rot fungus which killed many others in wet Cornwall, as well as good resistance to the ever-present Cornish wind. However as it was planted in increasing quantities it fell victim to virus instead and so is now much less important commercially. It was outlived on the bulb farms by his father’s ‘Carlton’, which is largely virus-resistant and still important for the cut-flower trade.
J. C. Williams’s ‘Hospodar’ (Large-cupped, pre-1914) 1. An article in the American Horticultural Society’s 1937 issue of The American Daffodil Year Book hailed P. D. Williams’s ‘Killigrew’ (Large-cupped, pre-1907) 2 as “another of [his] most beautiful flowers. Perfect in form, balance, and quality [with] exceptional vigor and rapid increase.” Also by P. D. is ‘Brunswick’ (Large-cupped, pre-1931) 3. His ‘Larkelly’ 4 is a dwarf Cyclamineus (pre-1930)—the Williams family were among early experimenters with Cyclamineus, although few crosses were named; also in this division: the very early ‘Peeping Tom’ (pre-1948) 5 and ‘Beryl’ 6. ‘Carlton’ AGM 7 was his great success. ‘Coverack Glory’ (pre-1927) 8 was another fine Large-cupped variety. Michael Williams’s ‘Jack Snipe’ (pre-1951) 9 is among the most successful Cyclamineus of all time.
Thinking small
ALEC GRAY MINIATURES
FROM P. D.’S ERA on, daffodil breeding diversified, with many more people becoming entranced, obsessed, and determined to breed new colours, new combinations of colours, better plants, and novel shapes. At the same time, though, it consolid
ated, largely concerned with perfecting the “standard” daffodil, be it Trumpet, Large-, or Small-cupped. One man stands out from the next generation, for his prescience in choosing a novel direction which is finally coming into its own.
Alec Gray (1895–1986), like Engleheart, was an amateur archaeologist, as well as a fruit grower and raiser of 110 new daffodils over fifty-nine years of active breeding. Working as a farm manager on the Scillies in the 1920s, he established a collection of daffodils, beginning to register varieties from the late 1930s onwards. Gray’s triumph was the immensely successful ‘Tête-à-Tête’, which he produced sometime in the 1940s. By 2006 it made up thirty-four percent of Dutch bulb production, being grown on 560ha (1,400 acres) of the country, with seventeen million pots sold at auction. From the same cross, Gray raised two other very good varieties, ‘Jumblie’ and ‘Quince’. ‘Tête-à-Tête’ was the first real success of a new kind of daffodil, not just a robust and charming miniature but a complex cross between divisions. It and its siblings were descended from one unknown parent and ‘Cyclataz’, a 1920s cross made by Arthur Tait, in Portugal; ‘Tête-à-Tête’ is actually a pun on Tait’s name rather than a reference to there being two flowers atop one stem. ‘Cyclataz’ is in turn a cross between ‘Soleil d’Or’, an old (pre-1731) Tazetta, and the strange diminutive little Narcissus cyclamineus.
It was no coincidence that Gray got ‘Cyclataz’ in Portugal, as he and his wife, Flomay, would often go travelling in Spain and Portugal to collect more-small natural forms. He went on to produce many other great and innovative miniatures, although some of these do not perform well in cool summer climates—to name but two, the beautiful, pale little Tazetta ‘Minnow’ (1962) and the almost perfectly round ‘Sun Disc’, a pre-1946 Jonquil.
Concluding our brief survey of these crucial years in the making of the modern daffodil, it is worth remembering that there is almost no mention of genetic science in the form of Mendelian principles in any of the writings about these early breeders. Mendel’s work was effectively discovered in 1900, and introduced to science through a series of conferences on hybridisation, in London, Paris, and New York, over the next few years. It took a long time for Mendelian genetics to be understood and used effectively, however, with the breeders of ornamental plants among the last to be “converted” to the new way of thinking. It would probably be true to say that not until after World War II did breeders pay it much attention.
A selection of Alec Gray miniatures. ‘Tête-à-Tête’ AGM 1 is well on its way to evicting ‘King Alfred’ and ‘Carlton’ from the “most popular daffodil of all time” slot. ‘Elka’ (Trumpet, 1989) 2, also very early, deserves a great future. ‘Jumblie’ (Miscellaneous, pre-1952) 3, from the same cross as ‘Tête-à-Tête’, is popular as a rock garden or container plant. ‘Johanna’ is a dwarf Triandrus (pre-1950) 4. A display by Broadleigh Gardens of Somerset illustrates Alec Gray’s work; they hold the UK National Collection of his daffodils 5.
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Travelling, Changing, and Multiplying
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
The nineteenth century saw the British fan out all over the world, and while they may have, for a period, governed vast stretches, they actually tended to settle only in those climates which had some resemblance to what they knew at home. With them went their language, culture, crops, and garden plants. Daffodils and Britishers took root in similar climes, and today it should come as no surprise that the United States, New Zealand, and Australia are home to growers and enthusiasts.
Ireland, Britain’s first colony, has a mild and moist climate ideal for daffodils. Nurseryman William Baylor Hartland (1836–1912) even tried to get the daffodil to be made the country’s national flower but failed in the face of the humble shamrock. Hartland’s grandfather had come to Ireland from London’s Kew Gardens to set up a nursery, which Hartland eventually inherited. While he grew a variety of crops, it was daffodils which clearly inspired Hartland the most. In an early version of the heirloom plant rescue, and a parallel with Peter Barr, starting around 1880, Hartland searched for old varieties all over Ireland, digging up as many different bulbs from gardens as he could, to then bulk them up in the nursery and offer them for sale. His first catalogue, A Little Book of Daffodils: Nearly 100 Varieties as Offered and Collected by W. B. Hartland (1884), mined the same vein of pseudo-historical whimsy which Barr had exploited, but taken to even further lengths and using an antique typeface.
The following random example of Hartland’s prose gives a good idea of his style:
Oh! Amadis! Never saw I so sweet a maid in all my life before, nor likewise one with eyes so bright, and countenance so gentle and yet, withal, so arch. I saw that her arms were all overladen with Daffodillies, like a great cluster of beauteous stars. And so she walked amid the flowers that reached nigh to her knees and came, and was gone, leaving me lying as though entranced with what I had beholden.
Hartland’s catalogue helped inspire Ireland’s first major breeder, Guy Wilson (1885–1962), who was apparently first shown it as a child by his mother, when he asked her if white daffodils existed. He started growing daffodils in his teens and, being sent away to boarding school, had to rely on his mother’s letters for information on their flowering and performance. Starting to breed daffodils in his early twenties, he went on to dedicate his life to them, dubbing the love of the flower as the “yellow fever.” He was known to work on his plants by moonlight, or if this was inadequate, by torchlight. White flowers remained a lifelong obsession, although he also worked with many other colours. He is known to have visited The Brodie many times. The area where he was brought up, around Ballymena in County Antrim (in the British-governed north), has remained a centre of daffodil breeding ever since, with many of the very best and most prolific breeders originating here.
Some Irish-bred daffodils. ‘Cantatrice’ (pre-1936) 1, a Guy Wilson Trumpet, illustrates this great Irish breeder’s passion to create the perfect white daffodil. The daffodil cognoscenti rate Lionel Richardson as the next greatest Irish breeder; he was certainly prolific. Of his 640-plus registered varieties, here are three, all Large-cupped: ‘Pinza’ (1962) 2, ‘Rainbow’ (1961) 3, and ‘Vulcan’ (1956) 4.
New Zealand became one of the most accommodating homes away from home for the British. The tradition of the flower and produce show, which became firmly established in villages across Britain in the nineteenth century, was soon transplanted to these islands on the other side of the world. As early as 1898, the Wellington Horticultural Society started a show dedicated entirely to daffodils, and a thriving nursery and daffodil breeding business soon got going. As often happens in pioneering societies, homesteads were built and abandoned with speed, and nowadays clumps of daffodils are often the only sign of a place where a settler’s home once stood.
Double ‘Kiwi Magic’ (Max Hamilton, 1989) 1 and Small-cupped ‘Little Jewel’ 2 (Jim O’More, pre-1985) were both bred in New Zealand. ‘Binkie’ (Large-cupped, pre-1938) 3 is one of the best-established reverse bicolours, fading to a uniform pale yellow; grown and selected by the Australian W. Wolfhagen from seed supplied by Irishman Guy Wilson, it illustrates the global collaboration which has long been a feature of the daffodil world.
Australia too saw daffodil growing take off, but only to any extent in the southern colonies of Tasmania and Victoria, the rest of the continent being too hot and dry. A writer in the 1938 Daffodil Yearbook noted of Tasmania that “it is difficult to get a bunch of good daffodils intact to their destination through the streets of Hobart, for many people will stop to admire and talk about them with real love and admiration.” Despite strict quarantine restrictions limiting the importation of bulbs and so limiting the ability of breeders to innovate, daffodil growing and breeding continues.
It was in the United States that daffodils really took off. A trickle of bulbs in the early 1800s had become a flood of Dutch imports by the end of the century. Before we turn to U.S. soil, it is worth a brief look at the source of these imports. The
Netherlands is the only non-English-speaking country to fall in love with the daffodil, but it has happened in a very different way. The Dutch are well known for their love of the tulip, which led to the extraordinary story of the world’s first financial bubble, the “tulip mania” of the seventeenth century. It was almost inevitable that Dutch growers would turn to daffodil production during the nineteenth century, as growers began to look to building an export trade in plants. Trade is very much what Dutch daffodil growing is about—there is no equivalent of the keen amateur interest in growing and exhibiting or breeding daffodils that typifies anglophone countries; growing daffodil is business. In this sense the daffodil is not a cult flower in the Netherlands as it does not have an amateur enthusiast following.
The Dutch attitude to plant production has always tended to be very focussed on profitability. One consequnece of this is that government support for growers in the form of research into propagation, cultivation, and disease management has tended to be high. W. F. Leenen & Sons are regarded as the number one breeders and growers in the Netherlands. Established in 1954, the company invested in building up a collection to use as a gene bank (now consisting of nearly two thousand cultivars) and developing international links: they have trial grounds in Britain, Chile, Brazil, and Australia. As well, they have done pioneering work in establishing chipping bulbs as a propagation technique.
Some growers have tended to look at the Dutch rather suspiciously, one California-based breeder for example, Harold Koopowitz, saying, “The Dutch are always on the lookout for new material—a lot of breeders are a bit wary of them. They take a variety and then get it mass produced, leaving the breeder out of the loop.”
“Dutch” still carries with it an enormous cachet in the United States when it comes to bulbs, giving a definite advantage to Dutch companies. Early settlers, however, brought their daffodils with them—their ability to survive for long periods as dry bulbs must have helped their journey across the Atlantic. Consequently, small hotspots of naturalising bulbs built up soon, especially in Virginia. The later years of the nineteenth century saw immense imports from the Netherlands, but this went into sharp decline with the 1919 Plant Quarantine Act, which finally stopped importation of bulbs in 1926 for several decades. This stimulated home production, with a number of Dutch firms setting up on Long Island, in the coastal Virginia area, and in places between Portland and Seattle, such as the Skagit Valley. Jan de Graaff, a member of the leading Dutch nursery family, went to Portland in 1926 to set up bulb farms, investing in breeding as well as production, but after naming around fifty varieties he sold off the daffodils in 1959 and concentrated on lilies, for which the business became world famous. The Pacific Northwest was for a while a major producer of bulbs, the high point being the 1940s, when twenty scientists and sixty-nine research projects were working on bulb production and pest and disease control.
The Daffodil Page 6