Mr Bowles' and Mr Rijnveld's precocious daffodils

While the prize for the earliest daffodil in our garden always goes to Narcissus 'Cedric Morris', usually in flower well before Christmas Day, those following hot on Cedric's heels as he begins to fade for another year both have their precocious nature writ large in their cultivar names: 'Bowles' Early Sulphur' and 'Rijnveld's Early Sensation'. The former is named for one of the doyens of British horticulture, the latter after a Dutch nurseryman (but therein lies a tale of horticultural skulduggery, of which more shortly).

Narcissus 'Bowles' Early Sulphur'

E. A. (Edward Augustus) Bowles (1865–1954) of Myddelton House, Enfield, Middlesex, was an avid gardener and plant collector and a prolific horticultural writer, with a particular interest in bulbs. It is therefore fitting that among many plants to carry his name is one of the first daffodils to flower in spring. I was captivated when I saw it in bloom at The Garden House a few years ago and am now proud to have a small, but slowly increasing colony of this diminutive gem in my own garden. The snowdrop Galanthus plicatus 'Augustus', together with Milium effusum 'Aureum' (known as Bowles' Golden Grass) and Carex elata 'Aurea' (Bowles' Golden Sedge) grow nearby.

Narcissus 'Rijnveld's Early Sensation'

In his recently published book Daffodil: The remarkable story of the world's most popular spring flower Noel Kingsbury writes that 'Rijnveld's Early Sensation' was "...originally bred by F. Herbert Chapman in England, of unknown parentage*, sometime before 1943, but only registered in 1956 by F. Rijnveld & Sons of Holland. This was not the first time that English growers might feel aggrieved at Dutch nurseries taking their plants and renaming them – a constant problem in plant breeding history." [*The delicate matter of doubtful parentage refers to the daffodil, rather than to Herbert.]

The name 'Rijnveld's Early Sensation' is certainly striking and apt to elicit a wry smile or possibly an ever-so-slightly-smutty titter. Not only does it show that hyperbole in the commercial naming of plants is nothing new, but it also has overtones of breathless Victorian newspaper advertisements: "Such is the Sensation provoked by the introduction from Holland of Mr Rijnveld's latest horticultural wonder, that ladies are swooning in the drawing rooms of Chelsea, rendered senseless by the Early display of his golden trumpet." Or words to that effect (I made that bit up, by the way).