There’s an Aussie curse that goes something like this: “I hope all your chickens turn into emus and kick your dunny down”. Chickens aren’t turning into emus, but there are strange goings-on in gardens.
A spate of gardeners have rung talkback radio claiming their yellow or in one case, pink, daffodils have turned into white jonquils. A bit of questioning revealed these white jonquils to be single white narcissus, better known as paperwhites.
Paperwhites are flowering now in my garden. Like the joyful yellow jonquil, paperwhites are fragrant, winter-flowering bulbs.
True daffodils flower later in the year, beginning to bloom in late winter and continuing into spring. The last daffodils of the year to flower are the poet’s eye (Narcissus poeticus).
But are the callers right, are their daffodils turning into jonquils (or paperwhites)?
The answer is no, but to understand what might be happening in the daffodil bed it is important to understand something of their botanical heritage.
Jonquils, paperwhites and daffodils are part of the large genus Narcissus. There are around 50 species of Narcissus.
As they’ve been grown as ornamental plants for centuries they have hybridised (that is crossed with one another) to form the vast range of named varieties we grow today.
The plant we call a daffodil has single stem with a large, single flower with a long trumpet. It is a Hybrid Cultivar developed over centuries to no longer resemble a wild narcissus species. Popular daffodils include ‘King Alfred’ and ‘Golden Lion’.
The flowers we call narcissus or jonquil have clusters of small flowers each with white petals and a small yellow or white cup. These come from the Mediterranean and are classified broadly as Narcissus tazetta.
Narcissus tazetta is one of the parents of the hybrid daffodils we grow in our gardens. Daffodils bred from N. tazetta usually have clusters of flowers on a single stem rather than a single bloom. ‘Geranium’, ‘Silver Chimes’ and ‘Ziva’ are all named varieties of multi-flowered daffodils that are derived from this species.
What is probably happening in gardens is the hybrid daffodils, which are more difficult to grow than paperwhites, have died off possibly due to a combination of drought and high summer temperatures followed by autumn rain.
For paperwhites to be growing in their place means these bulbs were mixed in with the original daffodils. Small immature paperwhite bulbs may have been present but not noticed. These tougher bulbs have now reached maturity and begun to flower.
As paperwhites and jonquils flower earlier than daffodils, there is still a chance that any surviving hybrid daffodils may flower in late August or early September.
Another possibility is the original daffodils set seed in their first year of flowering. Now, several years later, the seedlings have become bulbs big enough to bloom. These seedlings do not look like the original plant but have reverted to resemble a wild species.