Daffodil
a lily-like flowering herb belonging to the same family as the iris, or blue flag, and the blue-eyed grass. The flower scape springs from a bulb; the corolla is noticeable for a trumpet-shaped hood, rising in its center. Narcissus, the botanical name, includes daffodils and jonquils. The common daffodil is a meadow plant eighteen inches high, found from Sweden and England to Spain and Austria. Wordsworth's delight in the daffodil is worth a place here:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils,--
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering, dancing in the breeze.
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils,--
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering, dancing in the breeze.
There are a large number of varieties of daffodils in cultivation. Among the more interesting is the hoop-petticoat daffodil, which has solitary, erect, yellow flowers. Another variety, the rush daffodil, has a short crown and slender, drooping tube.
Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall,
And narcissi, the fairest among them all,
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess,
Till they die of their own dear loveliness.
And narcissi, the fairest among them all,
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess,
Till they die of their own dear loveliness.
Volume II · Aiton’s Encyclopedia