The plant geneticist Sir Rowland Biffen (1874-1949), who is best remembered for his work on the improvement of English wheat varieties using Mendelian principles, was also a keen botanist and gardener. This short work on the auricula, published posthumously in 1951, contains a full botanical account of the species, but also a social history of this most popular of 'florist's flowers'. Probably introduced to England by refugees from the continent in the late sixteenth century, the auricula, though delicate-looking, is extremely hardy, can be grown in pots, and hybridizes freely, and so it was...
The plant geneticist Sir Rowland Biffen (1874-1949), who is best remembered for his work on the improvement of English wheat varieties using Mendelian...
