Hello All,
Since there is last minute lobbying for votes I think I should also comment. I do hope many people will respond and vote for whichever option they favour so that the Committee will have a meaningful response that will help come to a final conclusion.
Mary Lou (as a member of the RHS Classification committee of which I am also a member) has pleaded for your support for Option 1 which means that in future all Div. 9 cultivars will be basically similar in colour to wild forms. This is inconsistent with the approach to classification in Divs. 5,6,7 where colours are accepted that are never found in the wild. Why should Div. 9 be different?
My plea is for a vote for Option 2 which allows for the development of Div. 9 to include flowers that retain the poeticus characteristics but with cups of pure white or all yellow, or with green eyes and yellow or pink rims, most probably with beautiful green eyes. To date hybridisers have been discouraged from creating such beautiful flowers by the restrictive classification even thouigh most cultivars will still have the red rimmed or solid red cups. This is an opportunity to express your opinion whether that restriction should be perpetuated or whether you want to see a wider range of beautiful Div. 9 cultivars in the future.
Please vote for Option 2 to release ALL hybridists from the currrent inconsistent restrictions.
It is important that we have many expressions of opinion to assist the Classification Committee in coming to a conclusion that has widespread support – so please vote, whatever your view.
Brian Duncan
Daffnet,
If anyone is interested, I am happy to post a series of images of natural poet seedlings from the Shaw Nature Reserve, photographed this spring in situ before the plants were dug for lining out. (These are not the same images from Keith Kridler that have been circulated since 2005.)
At our annual dig at the Shaw Nature Reserve, members of the Greater St. Louis Daffodil Society collected at least one hundred (100) different clones, each a naturally-occurring seedling from populations of poets such as Narcissus poeticus ‘Recurvus’, ‘Horace’, and a few hybrid clones we have yet to identify… our discoveries ranged from solid yellow, solid green, solid white, solid red, solid orange, white-rimmed yellow, white-rimmed green (not burnt, but fresh white tissue), yellow-rimmed green, green-rimmed white, buff, red-rimmed yellow, red-rimmed green, red-rimmed orange, orange-rimmed yellow, orange-rimmed buff, and split—yes, I typed split—coronas; we also found several clones with yellowish, creamy, and distinctly orange-toned petals, and white petals ranging from gorgeously smooth and overlapped to pinched, quilled, twisted, and so narrowly spidery that the petals were almost bulbocodium-like. We found varying degrees of doubling, with several clones approximating the cultivar ‘Keats’, all the way to fully doubled flowers. All of these grew from populations with nothing but poeticus hybrid and species varieties surrounding them, where they were originally planted in the 1920s and have since been left completely undisturbed (save for the Greater Saint Louis Daffodil Society digging into them over the past six years). It was a wild and crazy day of exploration, discovery, ticks and briars, but it was so worth it. I have hi-res images of most of these flowers, of fresh, non-burnt flowers (including the split corona!) that I will happily post if others would like to see. If so, say as much, and tonight I’ll put them on (lo-res, or course).
I am not trying to persuade anyone, but as a horticulturist and as someone who travels the wilds of the world looking for new plants and variants of known plants, I personally feel it is necessary to amend our opinion to Option 2… if for no other reason, in my very own backyard of Missouri, USA, naturalized poeticus populations have provided sufficient evidence that variations of other color combinations and forms occur, exist, and flourish. If they aren’t poets, what are they? (Perhaps we should create a new classification and call them Ozark Hillbillies…)
Mary Lou and Brian, and John, et al, have posed some exceptional reasoning for their respective stance. Regardless of your personal stance, please vote!
Thanks,
Jason
Dear Mary Lou and Daffnet,
Unfortunately, Brian’s message was held in Daffnet due to a security concern. Anytime an email is sent to a large group of people, Daffnet becomes concerned that it is SPAM. When found this morning, I felt that everyone would be interested in Brian’s information, so forced it to be sent to the membership despite the voting timeline.
My apologies to Brian and all for this lateness,
Nancy Tackett
Daffnet Co-Administrator
Jason:
Please, please post your photos.
Melissa
All, I don’t know if I am on time to vote. In any case, and just being a daffodil lover, I have never understood the colour restrictions in Div. 9. Fearing that the combination 9 W-GYR will disappear if more colours are allowed is like thinking the quest for Div. 1’s or Div. 2’s Y-R, Y-O, W-O, Y-P, W-P or reverse bicolors should have vanished the “wild combinations” Y-Y and W-Y. It did not happen, and I can not see a reason for happening in a wider Div. 9.
All the best Juan Andres Varas
Blackberry
Jason, I was there and would like to see your photos. But I would expect to have a more accurate representation of the poet species in their natural habitat, and even so, does anyone have any portion to share of a presentation I witnessed about wild arkansas daffodils? I am pround to have a name for these weird poets “Ozark Hilbillies”.
John Beck
I’ll wait for Sharon to let us know what she intends. All we know from the reply you received is that she’s out of the office for a week.
Melissa