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 it has a limited distribution around Cazorla and in the Magina Mountains. Our stock is traceable to the Sierra Magina in S. Spain. The plant there is classified as subspecies segimonensis, though we can see no really obvious differences between this and cuatrecasasii from further east in the Sierra Segura. Because it is an accepted name and because our seed stock originally came from the Sierra Magina, (from where segimonensis was described) we have kept that name associated with our stock whilst not believing it is actually that much different.
Narcissus cuatrecasasii is named for the Spanish botanist Dr. José Cuatrecasas (1903-1996)
