Narcissus 'Gerard's Double'
Archive entry 16.03.14
10th March 2013
A double daffodil that was thought to have been lost but has recently been re-discovered. This is thought to be
John Gerard's clone which he modestly named Narcissus multiplex Gerardi in 1597. In Johnson's edition
of 'Gerard's Herbal' of 1633 (much expanded and more sensible than the original) he says:
"The next to this is that which from our Author, the first observer thereof, is vulgarly called Gerards
Narcisse: the leaves and root do not much differ from the ordinarie Daffodil, the stalk is scarce a foot high,
bearing at the top thereof a floure very double, the sixe outermost leaves are of the same yellow colour as
the ordinarie one is; those that are next are commonly as deepe as the tube or trunke of the single one, and
amongst them are mixed also other paler coloured leaves, with some green stripes here and there amongst those leaves;
these floures are sometimes all contained in a trunk like that of the single one, the sixe out-leaves excepted:
other whiles this inclosure is broke, and then the flour stands fair open like that of the last described.
Lobel in the second part of his Adversaria tells, that our Author Master Gerard found this in Wiltshire,
growing in the garden of a poore woman, in which place a formerly Cunning man (as they vulgarly terme him)
had dwelt."
"This may be called in Latine, according to the English, Narcissus multiplex Gerardi, Gerards double Narcisse."
Parkinson had noted in 1629 that it is
" assuredly first naturall of our owne Countrey, for Mr. Gerard first discovered it to the world, finding
it in a poore womans Garden in the West parts of England, where it grew before the woman came to dwell there, and,
as I heard since, is naturall of the Isle of Wight."
I was very happy to obtain a bulb, and it still matches the original description!
17th March 2018