THE DAFFODIL. 



Narcissus pseudo-narcissus. Nat. Ord., 

 Amaryllidacece. 



ITH the exception of the hyacinth, 

 the subject of another of our 

 illustrations, there is, perhaps, no 

 wild flower that makes so grand 

 a show during the brief period 

 of its existence as the daffodil. We 

 may sometimes see in places the 

 hedges white with hawthorn, or the 

 surface of the stream sheeted over 

 with the countless blossoms of the 

 water-buttercups; we may sometimes 

 in a field note where the poppies in 

 some spots give a bright streak of 

 scarlet, or the charlock a mass of golden 

 yellow; but the sense of profusion and wealth of 

 floral beauty is, after all, nowhere and at no time 

 so truly felt as in the woods in spring, when the 

 ground, as far as the eye can reach beneath the over- 

 hanging boughs, is one mass of gold or purple, where 

 the rich green moss or the dark brown of the fallen leaves 

 is blotted out, except at one's very feet, by the countless 

 thousands of daffodils or hyacinths. In a large wood, near 

 where we now write, this beautiful sight is an annual 

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