Description
For many years, and certainly as far back as the time of Stocken, Narcissus cuatrecasasii was known as “rupicola pedunculatus“. It was finally recognised as a distinct species in 1973 despite the fact that it was already, most very clearly, something new and different.
It is related to N. rupicola but it is more robust and it has wider leaves (though these are still very narrow) which are a grey-green colour. In addition it can sometimes carry more than one flower per scape and these are held on longer pedicels. A final point of difference from N. rupicola is that the corona of cuatrecasasii is not lobed.
The gardener will esteem it for its miniature size, neat growth and for its vivid and intense canary-yellow, highly fragrant flowers. This scent really is something special.
It likes a fertile, well-drained, loam-based compost. A few, planted outside in a sunny, raised bed of gritty loam grow well outside with us here, but it can also be pot-grown if you wish, under alpine glass and this is how we prefer to keep it, simply to ensure its sets good, true seed, from hand-pollination rather than from random bees in the garden!
In the wild the entire species (consisting of both subspecies) has a limited distribution around Grazalema, Cazorla and in the Sierra Magina. This new stock is traceable to the Sierra Segura in S. Spain, not far from Cazorla itself. The plant there is now classified as the type subspecies cuatrecasasii, though we can see no really obvious differences between this and segimonensis from further west in the Sierra Magina. Because it is an accepted name and because our seed stock is well-documented as having originally come from the Sierra Segura, we have kept that name associated with our new stock whilst not believing it is actually that much different.
Narcissus cuatrecasasii is named for the Spanish botanist Dr. José Cuatrecasas (1903-1996)
