39 The Image of Daffodil in Art and Botanical Illustration: Clues to the History of Domestication and Selection of Narcissus subgenus Ajax (Amaryllidaceae) Diego Rivera 1*  Segundo Ríos 2  Concepción Obón 3  Francisco Alcaraz 1 1 Departamento de Biología Vegetal, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Spain 2 Departamento de Biología Animal, Vegetal y Ecosistemas. Universidad de Alicante, San Vicente del Raspeig, Alicante, Spain 3 Departamento de Biología Aplicada. Div. Biología Vegetal, EPSO, 03312 Orihuela, Alicante, Spain Corresponding author: * drivera@um.es Keywords: evolution, floral morphology, floriculture, garden bulbs, morphometrics ABSTRACT The "Ajax Group" (i.e. Pseudonarcissus) is one of the most important ancestors of modern daffodils cultivars. The manner in which these plants were introduced into the English, French and Dutch gardens appears relatively obscure since most are endemic to the Iberian Peninsula. This chapter compares data from Arab texts of agriculture, European Renaissance, and Prelinnaean texts and illustrations, with the morphological characteristics of primitive cultivars of trumpet daffodils and the related wild taxa from of Spain and Portugal. The relationships among wild plants, domesticated plants, and primitive cultivars were investigated through a cluster analysis of the characters available from figures or botanical illustrations. The tree resulting from the Complete linkage analysis and UPGMA analysis distinguished 26 different groups including wild; cultivated and wild; and cultivated daffodils. A comparison of early descriptions, localities, and illustrations with currently wild species confirmed that several Iberian Peninsula endemics were cultivated in Central European gardens between the 16 th and 18 th centuries. Examples are: Narcissus abscissus Pugsley, N. jacetanus Fernández Casas, N. asturiensis Hénon, N. hispanicus Gouan, N. nobilis (Haw.) Schult. var. leonensis (Pugsley) A. Fernandes, N. pallidiflorus Pugsley and N. pseudonarcissus L. The characters involved in flower pigmentation evolved independently from other morphological characters. It obviously occurred in different places and at different times. Thus any colour flower group, even whites, is polyphyletic. 1. INTRODUCTION The "Ajax Group" (i.e. Pseudonarcissus) is one of the most important ancestors of modern daffodil cultivars. It has been estimated to be the parent of 99% of the yellow trumpet cultivars (Coats 1956). In fact, its is also involved in the origin of most of the daffodil cultivars groups included in the old class Mediocoronati, e.g., 'Incomparabilis', 'Barrii', 'Backhousei', 'Nelsonii', 'Humei', 'Leedsii' and 'Odorus' (Bahnert 1992). In the modern classification system (RHS 2000 2005a 2005b, Kington 2002), it is involved in the origin of Divisions 1, 2, 4, 6, and 11. The Iberian Peninsula is the center of diversity for Narcissus subgenus Ajax Spach with 30-40 taxa (Fernandes 1957, Andersen 1988 1990, Ríos et al. 1999). Fernandes (1951) proposed N. nevadensis Pugsley as the ancestral species of subgenus Ajax. The relationships among wild plants, domesticated plants, and primitive cultivars were investigated through a cluster analysis of the characters available from figures or botanical illustrations (Rivera et al. 2003). The more primitive European herbals represented trumpet daffodils in an unrealistic and naive manner and are not suitable for analysis (Arber 1988), however illustrations with a minimum level of accuracy exist since the 16 th century. There appears to have been little attention given to daffodils in England until the 16 th century (Coats 1956). Turner identified the Pliny’s daffodil as the English common daffodil, without mentioning any other related taxon (Britten, Daydon-Jackson and Stearn 1965). The "yealowe daffodil" of Turner (1548) is presumably the common N. pseudonarcissus of the English meadows and forests (Stace 1991). It seems that few daffodil species, presumably only the wild one, were available in England up to 1548. Parkinson (1629) cited notices concerning the introduction of daffodils to the British Isles. Loudon (1841) subsequently referred to Parkinson as the earliest citations of most of the flowers of this group grown in England. Hereman (1868), Haworth (1831) and Pugsley (1933) increased the list of taxa. There are more recent reports by Cullen (1986), Webb (1980), and The International Daffodil Register (Kington 2002). Barkham