The Daffodils and Their Relatives

Teacher’s Story

“Daffydown Dilly came up in the cold from the brown mold,
Although the March breezes blew keen in her face,
Although the white snow lay on many a place.”

Thus, it is that Miss Warner’s stanzas tell us the special reason we so love the daffodils. They bring the sunshine color to the sodden earth, when the sun is chary of his favors in our northern latitude; and the sight of the daffodils floods the spirit with a sense of sunlight.

The daffodils and their relatives, the jonquils and narcissus, are interesting when we stop to read their story in their form. The six segments of the perianth, or, as we would say, the three bright-colored sepals and the three inner petals of the flower, are different in shape; but they all look like petals and stand out in star-shape around the flaring end of the flower tube, which, because of its shape, is called the corona, or crown; however, it looks more like a stiff little petticoat extending out in the middle of the flower than it does like a crown. The crown is simply the widened end of the tube of the flower, as maybe seen by opening a flower lengthwise; the six seeming petals will peel off the tube, showing that they are fastened to the outside of it. When we look down into the crown of one of these flowers, we see the long style with its three-lobed stigma pushing out beyond the anthers, which are pressed close about it at the throat of the tube; between each two anthers may be seen a little deep passage, through which the tongues of the moth or butterfly can be thrust to reach the nectar. In a tube, slit open, we can see the nectar at the very bottom of it, and it is sweet to the taste and has a decided flavor. In this open tube we may see that the filaments of the stamens are grown fast to the sides of the tube for much of their length, enough remaining free to press the anthers close to the style. The ovary of the pistil is a green swelling at the base of the tube; by cutting it across we can see it is triangular in outline, and has a little cavity in each angle large enough to hold two rows of the little, white, shining, unripe seeds. Each of these cavities is partitioned from the others by a green wall; the partition is marked by a suture on the outside of the seed-pod.

When the flower stalk first appears, it comes up like a sheathed sword, pointing toward the zenith, green, veined lengthwise, and with a noticeable thickening at each edge. As the petals grow, the sheath begins to round out; and then as if to confuse those people who are so stupid as to believe that plants do not really do things, the stiff stem at the base of the sheath bends at right angles. This brings a strain upon the sheath which bursts it, usually along the upper side, although sometimes it tears it off completely at the base. The slitted sheath, or spathe, hangs around the stem, wrinkled and parchment-like, very like the loose wrist of a suede glove. The stalk is a strong green tube; the leaves are fleshy and are grooved on the inner side, the groove being deep enough to clasp part way around the flower stem. The number of leaves varies with the variety, and they are usually as tall as the flower stalk. There is one flower on a stalk in the daffodils and the poet’s narcissus, but the jonquils and paper-white narcissus have two or more flowers on the same stalk.

A bed should be prepared by digging deep and fertilizing with stable manure. The bulbs should be planted in September or early October, and should be from four to six inches apart, the upper end of the bulbs at least four inches below the surface of the soil. They should not be disturbed but allowed to occupy the bed for a number of years, or as long as they give plenty of flowers. As soon as the surface of the ground is frozen in the winter, the beds should be covered from four to six inches in depth with straw-mixed stable manure, which can be raked off very early in the spring.

The new bulbs are formed at the sides of the old one; for this reason the daffodils will remain permanently planted, and do not lift themselves out of the ground like the crocuses. The leaves of the plant should be allowed to stand as long as they will after the flowers have disappeared, so that they may furnish the bulbs with plenty of food for storing. The seeds should not be allowed to ripen, as it costs the plant too much energy and thus robs the bulbs. The flowers should be cut just as they are opening. Of the white varieties, the poet’s narcissus is the most satisfactory, as it is very hardy and very pretty, its corona being a shallow, flaring, greenish yellow rosette with orange-red border, the anthers of its three longest stamens making a pretty center. No wonder Narcissus bent over the pool in joy at viewing himself, if he was as beautiful a man as the poet’s narcissus is as a flower.