Hi Jackie,
The photo is named after the seedling number 03_01W. (03 means 2003; 01 means first; W means paperwhite). I checked the pedigree and it is two Australian collections crossed with each other. It is too frosty in Canberra for them to do well without some protection. These are growing against the north wall of the house and look okay because we’ve has a cold wet, but not frosty, spell. Paperwhites can be very good exhibition flowers. 03_01W is NOT bred from pachybolbus, but pachybolbus (the Australian Dettmann collection) is superb and produces very good hybrids. I recently read a discussion on Daffnet (from a couple of years ago) about pachybolbus. Anyone who has seen this collection does not doubt that pachbolbus is a distinct species. I don’t know if opinion has since settled on the subject. It occurs to me that Lindsay Dettmann may have collected it in North Africa during WW2. I hope Will Ashburner (his relative at Hancock Daffodils) will squash this idle conjecture if he knows it to be obviously wrong. Bill Welch in the US is bound to have really good paperwhites.
Lawrence
Hi Lawrence,
I think your suggestion about Lindsay is very romantic but sadly untrue.
Lindsay enlisted in October 1942, so by the time he had completed basic training the North Africa campaign was near finished. Most Australian enlistments from this part of the War were directed to the Pacific theatre.
He began working with Daffodils with his relative Hugh Dettmann before he retired from the Army in 1967. Ii suspeect the majority if his inital stock came from Hugh. Hugh was a friend of Alistair Clark and provided back up growing facilities when Nematodes appeared in Clark’s stock. Clark’s stock including his share of the bulbs from the purchase of the syndicate of Enlehearts stock and also that of George Titheradge. Realistically Detman’s pachybulbus probably originated amongst the English collections of the 19th Century by Barr et al.
Lindsay is a relative of my wife’s.
All the best
Will