Daphne

Garden update:

While the paperwhites 'Nir' and 'Wintersun' provided a much-appreciated bloom just after Christmas, as soon as it dipped down to 19 degrees, the flowers went to mush and fell to the ground. The foliage is still alive and growing well. I suspect that, even though paperwhites are hardy here, the fact that the flowers aren't entirely frost-proof limits their use.

A number of weeks later, and other daffodils are beginning to bloom. I hope to post more photos soon.

In the meantime, fragrant winter daphne is blooming here. There are a number of species of Daphne, but the only one suited to Alabama's climate, that I know of, is Daphne odora. The most common one found here is the cultivar 'Aureomarginata' which has leaves with golden margins and is hardier than the species.

By the way, you can easily tell that a cultivar is an old one if it has a Latin name, such as aureomarginata. Latin names are no longer allowed for cultivars as of January 1, 1959.

While we are on the subject of nomenclature, "cultivar" is a word short for "cultivated variety", distinct from "variety" (Latin, varietas, abbreviated var.), which technically should be used only with naturally-occurring varieties. 

Cultivars are always capitalized, in single quotation marks, and not italicized.

Example:

Daphne odora 'Aureomarginata'

Varieties are never capitalized, always italicized, never in quotation marks, and most often follow "var."

Example:

Narcissus jonquilla var. henriquesii

Anyway, this is a photo I took of winter daphne:

Daphne odora 'Aureomarginata'