From “Lent Lilies” in Garden Bulbs for the South by Scott Ogden:
“February in the South is a season of false promises. Unsuspecting blossoms are lured out during warm spells, only to be brutally reproached with the blue winds of northers. Strangely enough, there are certain plants whose peculiar demeanor suits them to this chancy weather. None is more welcome in gardens than the wild trumpet daffodil, or Lent lily, Narcissus pseudonarcissus.
“These wildlings are the earliest flowering of their race, usually appearing at the beginning of February. Perhaps because of the coldness of the season, the stems never reach as high as the daffodils that follow. The entire plant generally stays only six to eight inches tall.
“Despite this low stature, the blooms reach a respectable two to three inches in length. These proportions give the plants the charming aspect of alpine miniatures. Pale yellow, dog-eared petals frame the deeper yellow trumpets.
“The Lent lily is a wild European daffodil introduced to the South by early settlers. It has since spread far and wide in gardens, and has seeded and naturalized in fields and along roadsides. Although much like modern daffodils in construction, these wildflowers have a more relaxed appearance than their pedigreed descendants.
“Daffodils are strangely built flowers, with a unique apparatus for attracting pollinators and protecting pollen and nectar. The value of this becomes immediately apparent with an early flower like the Lent lily. All you need do is stand for a moment in a cold February sleet storm to appreciate the advantage of the trumpet-shaped coronas, which provide shelter to pollen and to the brave bees and other insects who venture out to visit the blossoms.”
From “The Groves of Blarney” by Richard Alfred Milliken in The Penguin Book of Irish Verse, introduced and edited by Brendan Kennelly:
The groves of Blarney
They look so charming,
Down by the purling
Of sweet, silent brooks,
Being banked with posies
That spontaneous grow there,
Planted in order
By the sweet ‘Rock Close’.
‘Tis there the daisy
And the sweet carnation,
The blooming pink
And the rose so fair,
The daffodowndilly,
Likewise the lily,
All flowers that scent
The sweet, fragrant air…
Hello!
This is the first of four posts exploring four daffodil varieties that were mixing it up at Oakland Cemetery earlier this year. Oakland’s daffodils tend to flood the grounds from late February through the end of March, with some later-bloomers extending into early April. They’re often harbingers of the early or late arrival of spring — like this year, when warmer temperatures brought them out about eleven days earlier than usual because they’re more responsive to the environmental conditions than to the dates on our calendars.
Here are examples of the four varieties…
… that I’ve identified (from left to right, top to bottom) as Narcissus pseudonarcissus, Narcissus × incomparabilis, Narcissus tazetta, and Narcissus poeticus. Each species has its own stories to reveal, and comparing them to each other can lead to an unlimited number of related threads about their botanical and breeding characteristics, their history, and how they’ve been used in garden landscaping over several centuries. And comparing just these four — selected from dozens of species present on Oakland’s grounds — shows how visually diverse daffodils really are, from the more commonly recognized flower form in the first photo to something that almost looks like a plant from another species in the last photo. Identifying individual daffodil species can be a challenge, but this quad shows how the length and shape of the flowers’ coronas vary among them, and how the flower petals demonstrate varying degrees of length as well as curved or pointed edges — and these two characteristics together can be used to sort out their correct names.
Narcissus pseudonarcissus has the longest corona and with similarly long petals surrounding it; Narcissus × incomparabilis has a wider, flatter corona, often ruffled, with shorter curved flower petals; Narcissus tazetta typically has a short but bright red-orange corona with round (slightly crumpled, especially as they age) flower petals; and Narcissus poeticus has petals that are similar to those of Narcissus tazetta but makes itself distinct by a corona with a colorful edge that led to one of its common names, Pheasant-eye Daffodil. Pheasant-eye coronas are often saturated yellow with red-orange edging; but the ones I photographed this year have a much lighter, nearly white ground color that is actually a blend of pale yellow and very light green. This could mean the flowers had aged enough that the yellow component had faded; or, as likely, they’re simply a variant that produces a whiter corona. Either way, I found them interesting because the coronas were so close to white, a presentation I had not seen before in my stomps through Oakland.
Most of the daffodils in this post and the second one live here…
… where they add color to the corner of a large field and are somewhat sheltered by a Japanese Maple and surrounding shrubs. Our first species — Narcissus pseudonarcissus — is the quintessential daffodil, featuring the easily recognized yellow-orange color with flowers that often tip or nod, happily toward the sun. These are the “golden daffodils” starring in the well-known poem I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth, where their prominent billing introduces many starry, twinkling, dancing, waving, and colorful metaphors that persist to this day. Narcissus pseudonarcissus has acquired numerous common names over centuries — such as Wild Daffodil, Lent Lily or Lenten Lily, and Bell Rose. Their intriguing folk-name Daffodowndilly (or Daffadowndilly) can be found as far back as the sixteenth century (in The Herball, or, Generall historie of plantes by John Gerard) and in many poems such as Daffodowndilly by A. A. Milne and the excerpt from “The Groves of Blarney” by Richard Alfred Milliken that I included up-top. Common names that seem to cross species — like lily or rose for daffodils — are not unusual, as we’ve often seen here among my posts, and reflect visual similarities among plants and flowers from early botanical study that are never quite shaken off by later, more precise species or family identifications.
Thanks for reading and taking a look!
