Description
‘King Alfred’
1Y-Y
[Trumpet 1a]
(Kendall, J., pre-1890)
‘King Alfred’ doesn’t possess the most evenly dentate trumpet-rim (true ‘Golden Harvest’ probably deserves this accolade). He doesn’t have the perfect perianth. What he does have, in spades, is poise. His “Mona Lisa Effect” outshines La Gioconda’s: the steady gaze of his horizontally borne trumpet follows you across the garden. In 1903, the Revd Bourne wrote in The Book of the Daffodil “Probably the finest yellow Ajax yet produced”, and Guy Wilson (one of the daffodil breeder “greats”) wrote, in Calvert’s Daffodil Growing for Pleasure and Profit (1929), “‘King Alfred’, which is one of the epoch-making flowers of daffodil history, was the most striking advance ever achieved in a single step amongst Yellow Trumpets…”. Reminiscent of many a cooking apple being passed off as ‘Bramley Seedling’, yellow trumpet daffodils with a less regal carriage have been circulated in the past as ‘King Alfred’. However, we’re sure we hold a stock true to name and are pleased at last to offer you 24-carat ‘King Alfred’.
