Narcissus cyclamineus
Archive entry 23.02.14
Archive entry 09.02.20
1st March 2012
Narcissus cyclamineus is a delightful little species that grows best in moist acidic soils. I have wanted to grow it for
a long time but it took me until last year to actually buy one (it is still uncommon enough to buy one at a time).
It is the parent (grandparent, great-grandparent and occassionally foster-parent) to an entire section of hybrids. Its
closest relatives inherit the long tube and the reflexed tepals.
The species comes from Portugal and was known in the seventeenth century (illustrated in Theatrum Florae, 1633) but it seems
to have slipped from horticultural awareness until it was rediscovered by Edwin Johnstone in 1885. It is now known
very locally from northwest Portugal and Galicia in Spain where it grows in damp meadows by the side of mountain streams.
The specific habitat is not easy to replicate in cultivation which may explain its continued rarity, despite growing easily from seed.
14th March 2013
6th February 2018
10th February 2021