Canberra early May

Thanks everyone for the the show reports and pictures.

We’ve had the first couple of touches of frost here. N. viridiflorus is flowering as are some of its second generation fertile hybrids.

virid hybrids

The bulbocodium season has begun.

12_01B 12_49B? 13_01B

The triggers to flowering in daffodils can vary. Some tazettas will flower very early in response to watering. Others respond to temperature and will flower regardless of moisture – N. elegans hybrids (Gold Stanza) for example.

Gold Stanza

Curiously, N. broussonetii seems to need a long hot dry spell. It was watered after planting and it hasn’t been triggered into growth at all. I have lifted the bulbs again and brought them inside.

Also curious, two Gold Step seedlings have flowered. A dubius hybrid and this one, effectively (Gold Step OP) OP.

13_05MB

The white bulbocodium seedling above was bred from Gaddle Qua. Some of Gaddle Qua’s grandchildren tried to flower in their packets so it looks as if reliable autumn bulbocodiums can be derived from this ancestry.

Some of the Gramons have flowered in response to watering. We’ve had a very dry autumn so in the field they haven’t even sprouted. Flowering now is this nice dwarf tazetta.

09_30T

As is a Taztep x Virivest – too short stemmed here to be very good.

12_01TX

Also flowering in response to water are the paperwhites, including pachybolbus and some of its hybrids.

pachybolbus  98_27W

A curious hybrid is a Mornington (a Pearl type hybrid) x pachybolbus. Most have glaucous foliage and are like paperwhites but a few have green foliage, suggesting that the Pearl type has not bred exactly as a paperwhite – there is some colored tazetta ancestry in the hybrid. The flower looks a bit like a paperwhite broussonetii hybrid. So far as I can tell the plant is true to cross and a mistake in bulb handling can be ruled out. The strange petal numbers suggest this plant is fairly disturbed.

(Comment added 12 Aug 2015: it looks like a paperwhite broussonetii hybrid because it is – a bookwork error!)

14_05W

 

1 comment for “Canberra early May

  1. Thanks for sharing these great photos Lawrence. Along with others you are making most interesting progress in daffodil breeding. You have suggested influences that give some variation to normal flowering season. I have a N cantabricus almost finished flowering. It normally flowers late July. Interesting in that I have the bulb labelled as N cantabricus kesticus but, as mine has a 20mm pedicel and the photos on Daffseek and the description in Blanchard verify that kesticus has no pedicel, I have to assume that mine is incorrectly named. Nylon and Spoirot are also about to open, three months ahead of normal. Maybe seasonal normals no longer exist.

    Dave

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