From “Daffodil: Spring’s Messenger” in The Story of Flowers: And How They Changed the Way We Live by Noel Kingsbury:
“At the turn of the nineteenth century William Herbert, a lifelong enthusiastic plant-breeder, made a study of daffodils, showing through experimental breeding that they hybridized naturally. This contributed to his developing a version of the theory of evolution, decades before Charles Darwin. Another country cleric, George Engleheart, later in the century, played a crucial role in the development of the modern daffodil; his ‘Will Scarlett’, with its dramatic orange cup, was quite unlike anything else that had been seen, and led to a whole new vein of breeding. Daffodil-growing took a leap forwards in the late nineteenth century, when two key British gardeners, William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll, showed how easy it was to plant them in rough grass and watch them come up year after year. This helped to stimulate major commercial development in the century that followed….
“The white, heavily scented N. tazetta has been found in ancient Egyptian tombs and was mentioned by classical writers: Homer, Virgil and Ovid. The Silk Road took it to China, where it has long been used in the Spring Festival. Pockets of it naturalized all along the route.
“The botanical name commemorates the Greek legend of Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection; this is also possibly a reference to the plant’s supposed (although not well documented) narcotic properties. The scent of some species is indeed so strong that people can be overcome by headaches. The range of species is wide, and includes a number of flower shapes, although all have the distinctive trumpet-like corona, which early twenty-first-century research indicates is unique to Narcissus.”
From “Spring in the South” by Davie M. Herndon in Our World’s Most Beloved Poems, edited by John Campbell:
Crocus blooming at the mailbox,
Yards brightened up with yellow bells,
White spirea and snowy bridal wreath —
That Spring is here it’s easy to tell.
White narcissus and snowdrops small,
Hosts of golden daffodils,
Hyacinths in their waxen hues
All the air their perfume fills.
Tulip trees burst in lilac bloom
While in many hues azaleas dress;
And all the vari-colored bulbs
Through the warm earth gently press.
Camellias nestle on dark green stems —
Pink, white, rose-all three of these;
Wisteria of lavendar and deep purple shade
Drooping gracefully from tall pine trees.
Lawns all abloom wherever you look —
Blossoming dogwoods grace every way,
Heavily laden as with myriad snowflakes —
Hasn’t God made a beautiful display?
Hello!
This is the second of two posts with photos of white double Narcissus tazetta daffodils that I took at Oakland Cemetery on March 30. The first post is White Double Daffodils (1 of 2).
In this post, we take a closer look at the flower structures — a bee’s eye view! — showing how the plants produce inflorescence that may cluster horizontally or vertically or assemble into tiny bouquets. In some cases — when a flower is more isolated from the rest of the gang — it may develop a single bloom atop a sturdy stem or arc gracefully toward the light if the bloom is large and heavy. And as I explained in the previous post, you can also see how each one contains the yellow/orange rippled remnants of what would have been a recognizable corona in a daffodil that had not evolved into a double form.
I selected the poem at the top of the post because of its visual intensity and the way it quite accurately represents the sequential timeline of flowers blooming in the southeast — from the late winter appearance of crocus and spirea, through the early and middle spring appearance of the remaining plants the poet describes. Of course I also noticed that I’ve photographed all but two of the plants included in the poem — mainly at Oakland, but some in my own yard — and posted them here over the past few years. I added links to those tagged posts throughout the poem, if you’d like to explore more of my photography and writing in that somewhat random way.
Thanks for taking a look!
