hybridizing history

The Dutch began hybridizing tazettas by the 1630s. One of the earliest writers to discuss the raising of new daffodils from seed was Henrik van Oosten in his work The Dutch Gardener, published in 1703 (translated into English in 1711).

The oldest tazettas on the commercial market date to around or after the French Revolution and have French names, reflecting the geopolitics of the Low Countries (the Netherlands and Belgium). Most notable are 'Grand Monarque' (1759), 'Grand Soleil d'Or' (1770) and 'Grand Primo Citroniere' (1780).

A "modern" concerted effort to produce "new" tazettas began in the 1840s and is credited to Ernst Krelage and the firm of Valentijn Schertzer en Zonen (Valentine Schertzer and Sons), under the direction of  Hendrik Dirk Kruseman, Jr.  Kruseman in particular was credited with advancing tazettas with his novelty cultivars. These varieties reached American catalogs in the late 1860s and dominated the American market until the 1890s.

The subsequent wave of "new" tazettas, created in the 1880s onward, came to dominate American catalogs in the 1890s to the 1910s. Bred for indoor forcing, they are shorter and stouter plants (less prone to flopping about) with broader and longer coronas (for showier effect). 

The end of the 19th century was a time of great experimentation in hybridizing. Crosses were made between different species, giving rise to new forms. Some lasted on the commercial market, some barely held on by their toenails, and a great many quickly came and went. 

The most successful were the "poetaz" tazettas, hybrids between "true" tazettas and N. poeticus ("poet") daffodils. These hit the American market around 1907, and quickly displaced "true" tazettas by World War I. A dozen or so of the early poetaz hybrids were widely sold for the first five to ten years,  but a good handful were dropped from the American market after just a few years. Though most poetaz tazettas are very unhappy in the coastal South, there may be one or two that lurk in this collection.