White Double Tazetta Daffodils (2 of 2)

From “Narcissi” in The Lore and Legends of Flowers by Robert L. Crowell, illustrated by Anne Ophelia Dowden:

“As early as 1627, John Parkinson had distinguished nearly eighty different varieties of narcissus, but in later years many of these disappeared, and for some unaccountable reason narcissus culture suffered a decline for the next two hundred and fifty years. But for the great nurseryman Peter Barr, in England, we might now have far fewer varieties, and the early spring blaze of yellow and gold might be dimmer indeed….

“Mr. Barr was a Scot who spoke no foreign language and had such a thick burr that his own grandchildren could hardly understand what he was talking about. But nothing fazed Peter Barr. He was determined to collect the narcissi where they grew wild. Beginning in 1887 he made trips to Portugal, Spain, and France, often traveling on horseback or muleback, though he had never ridden before. He went high up in the Pyrenees, and at seven thousand feet found Parkinson’s Narcissus moschatus, which had disappeared from England by 1629….

“Looking, looking, digging, digging, he went deep down into mountain valleys, and on one occasion, at least, he slept outdoors under a rock ledge. Barr could not talk with the people he met, so wherever he went he showed large pictures of the flowers he was looking for. This worked, for he tells of finding six thousand bulbs here, seven thousand bulbs there, and one big haul of nearly twelve thousand.”

From “This Morning” in Hurrah! Selected Poems 1970-1980 by Irving Stettner:

This morning I explode
in/on a gold sunbeam mote,

dancedance on a white daffodil
cloud….

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Hello!

This is the second of two posts with photos of a double form of Tazetta daffodils. The first post is White Double Tazetta Daffodils (1 of 2), where I describe how I approached the reflected colors among these pearly white flowers during post-processing in Adobe Lightroom.

With this post, we come to the end of the double daffodils for 2025, unless I find more — which sometimes happens!

John Parkinson, mentioned in the quotation above, is well-known as a discoverer and breeder of double daffodil varieties. While alternate daffodil forms were undoubtedly known before him, his book Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris (1629) documented hundreds of daffodils, doubles among them. If you’re feeling literarily adventurous, click this link to the book and search for “double white” or “double yellow” to read what he wrote about different kinds, and also see sketches of some of them. As a historical amusable, the book title “Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris” is a Latin phrase that translates to “The Earthly Paradise of Park-in-Sun” — which Parkinson chose to make a pun on his own name.

Thanks for taking a look!

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