Cultivated-Plant Study 



599 



THE DAFFODILS AND THEIR RELATIVES 



Teacher's Story 



"Daffydown Ditty came nf> 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 rela- 

 tives, 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 petti- 

 coat 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 seem- 

 ing 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-lobecl 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. 



Daffodil. 



