Altun Ha, and latest daffodils

Dear Donna and Clay and All,

  The program mentioned some other place names which evaporated from my memory, but I’ll bet a list of John Pearson’s cultivars would refresh it.  This story of this breeder says there is need for another Daffodil book!  I plead incompetence.  There are a couple hundred varieties I could write about, but it would be a highly biased and unbalanced presentation of the range of what exists.  And I don’t have live and in person acquaintance with many breeders.  But I do have favorite plants and favorite people, and that will show.  My own disqualifications are a caveat to other erstwhile writers:  the field is such a vast one that many readers are certain to be dissatisfied with any one person’s coverage of it.  But many other readers will appreciate that it is one person’s perspective, and that his perspective has both breadth and depth.

  Daffodil season is not over yet!  I think it’s simply N jonquilla.  It’s tall relative to the small size of the flowers, they’re yellow, and there are two or three to a stalk.  A nearby label says “canaliculatus”, but I think the label is a migrant, and it’s a misidentification if it isn’t.  Glanced at John W Blanchard, Narcissus:  A Guide to Wild Daffodils, but haven’t yet taken the time to read the relevant parts closely.  Most of the poeticus are past their prime or over, but some, such as those back of the Rheum altaicum and near the cornfield and best viewed from it, are still in their prime.

  Next Amaryllidaceae member to flower will be Hypoxis hirsuta.  I expected it to be already flowering, but it isn’t, and I don’t know whether it’s late or my memory is vague.

Best,

Don

1 comment for “Altun Ha, and latest daffodils

  1. Don,
    I’m trying to stay off daffnet as much as possible as I keep insulting people accidentially every time I post, but I had to make a comment about your reference to, “John W Blanchard, Narcissus:  A Guide to Wild Daffodils.”
     
    I read that book many years ago with a “so what” attitude, as it was all about miniatures. Who cares, right? 
     
    Then I got interested in hybridizing miniatures and that so what, became fasination. I read and studied the book and took careful notes.  I think the trick in hydridizing miniatures that are fertile is the trick of learning which species are related to which species.  That’s where I found the “fantistic” in Blanchard’s book.  I learned the relationship between the daffodils. Even when I know I have breed a number of “mules,” it is getting the second and thrid generation out of my miniatures that really provokes my salvatory glands.
     
    I hope my spelling isn’t as bad as normal.  I’ve come to the conclusion that if you don’t learn spelling in grammer school, higher education and degrees do not correct that problem.  I was always too interested in math to learn English.
     
    clay
     

    Clay Higgins
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