Double Campernelle; or,
Queen Anne's Double Jonquil
"I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales & hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils."
-William Wordsworth
We did not intentionally obtain this Double Campernelle (Narcissus x odorus 'Plenus'). It was just there in the middle of a patch of regular single-campernelles.
We'd planted the singles as autumn bulbs under the mailbox, the location chosen for full afternoon sun & because it was a spot where we'd be able to apprecaite the famed redolence of the flowers. I must admit I was a tad bit disappointed that the "famed redolence" was not all that noticeable without putting one's nose right in the corola, but one cannot be disappointed in their long-lasting bright presence in spring.
With such a densely flowering patch of campernelles, I really hadn't noticed one of them was different, until Granny Artemis asked, "Are those doubles?" I replied, "No, they're normal singles." She said, "Well, that one is a double."Well gosh darn, how could I have overlooked that!
This is a very old heirloom variety, a mutation of a naturally occurring hybrid. It is not known where or when the first double campernelle appeared in gardens, but it is thought to have been already grown in the Elizabethan Era.
Apparently 'Rip van Winkle' Daffodil is occasionally known as "Queen Anne's Double Irish Daffodil" lending to a slight confusion over the alternate name for Double Campernelles, vis, "Queen Anne's Double Jonquil." The name assumes she might have had double-campernelles in her gardens. What is definitely known is that jonquils were her favorite flowers, & images of jonquills frequently turned up in her personal, skillful needlework.
Both the single & the double campernelle are hardy & easily grown, lasting six weeks in flower, shown on this page in March (top left) & April (second photo, right). It perennializes with great ease & produces bulb offsets to increase its number, but does not seed.