A warm congratulations to Harold Koopowitz on being awarded the Peter Barr Memorial Cup.
Thanks to everyone posting photos.
The season is well under way here with a variety of elegans hybrids in flower.
There are some nice new things. Most impressive is the sunproof orange from elegans. Gradual progress is being made in both 8W-O and 8Y-O. Am still waiting for an intense sunproof 8O-O.
Possibly the most interesting tazetta has the worst habit and form. I will keep it and use it if it retains its novel coloring, but it has no other merits.
I first flowered a tazetta jonquil hybrid in 2003. It has a delicious scent and increases rapidly but it makes a poor display. Another in 2007 makes a better display but is not as scented.
Last year a few more flowered. Most notable was Gramonella x 12_16J. Two seedlings flowered. Probably neither has good enough habit but surprisingly, one of them reversed.
This latest tazquils are a couple of viridiflorus hybrids. The pollen parent is probably the elegans hybrid 14_12T. It is a rough flower and the orange fades out of the perianth. It has been discarded.
The first florets of this one are a couple of days old now and the cup is still more brown than orange, so perhaps it is 7G-B (RHS 1986 151D-153D) . It seems to be quite sterile but some pollen has been put on it just in case.
