Description
‘Bedouin’
2W-YYO
[Giant Incomparabilis, 2b]
(J. C. Williams, pre-1908)
Having grown this for twenty years (as “Not ‘Albatross’”), we reckon we have finally identified it as the “Finest and most Beautiful Daffodil exhibited at the RHS Show, April 14th, 1908” (Barr & Sons’ catalogue, 1908 [where offered at 30/- per bulb!]). Many catalogues describe the perianth as “large” and “spreading”, but few concede that the segments are creamy on opening and become carefree and wayward: some recurve, some flop forwards, many twist or become propellor-shaped, retaining a golden smudge at the base. The corona, “elegantly fluted and crinkled at brim” (Barr & Sons originally, but pinched by many a later catalogue), is a deeply pleated, expanded bowl of chrome-yellow, with a wide ruffle of “glowing orange-red” (as per Cartwright and Goodwin’s catalogue of 1914 – which neglected to point out that the exuberant orange pales as the flower fades).
