New addition to Dafflibrary

We’ve just added Roberta Watrous’s handwritten hybridizing records from 1944 to 1984 to www.DaffLibrary.org. You can find them under “Hybridizing, 1951 to 2000” and under “People.”  Roberta was the first person in the U.S. who was seriously interested in miniatures and made serious efforts to breed them.  There are five files.  The first is a list, by year, of all her crosses.  The other four contain her notes about the seedlings over the years.  These are in alpha order by seed parent.  Because these are mainly handwritten–sometimes in ink, sometimes in pencil, they are not searchable by keyword.  Hybridizers will relate to her notes of “miniature size” one year, followed by “is it miniature? won the standard Rose Ribbon . . .” another year.

1 comment for “New addition to Dafflibrary

  1. Many thanks Mary Lou.

    I’ve just scanned the cross book and to me it’s like a novel: – failure, deception (incorrectly named plants), adventurousness, development, and above all, determination and persistence. And I see too the positive influence she had on many others, Australians included.

    So much of it strikes a chord with me – the crosses that succeed and the ones that don’t; the hybrids that are fertile and the ones that aren’t.

    The wonder of it is that at a press of a button one can switch screens to Daffseek and compare the book to the flowers that reached registration.

    The Watrous award really is something, isn’t it?

    So, once again thanks Mary Lou, and to all the wonderful people of the ADS, past and present, that make this all possible.

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