My Garden in Spring 



saw no difference except of language between a Narcissus 

 and a Daffodil. All the same it would be useful to have 

 a name for those Narcissi that we somehow feel ought not 

 to be called Daffodils, even though we may not be able 

 to find one better than the word Daffodil with some 

 " other Epithite." In spite of Gerard and Parkinson we 

 shall be in good company in feeling thus, for Turner in 

 The Names of Herbes writes : " This that we take for 

 Daffodil is a kind of Narcissus." So in 1548 it was felt 

 that though all Daffodils were Narcissi yet some Narcissus 

 might not be a Daffodil : but where they gave Parkinson 

 a chance of calling them hard names, was in the way they 

 used the Latin name of the whole genus for certain 

 members of it, instead of choosing some distinguishing 

 English word for that particular group. In much the 

 same way now people use the generic term Viola as 

 though it belonged only to the particular race of perennial 

 garden-raised Violas that have been well named Tufted 

 Pansies. It would be equally wise to start calling the 

 Irish Single Tea roses, Rosas, or those hairy oubits of dogs, 

 the now fashionable Pekinese, Canis. 



It is unfortunate that our modern idea of a true 

 Daffodil is not that of Parkinson's day. Hear him on 

 the subject. "Now to cause you to understand the 

 difference between a true Daffodil and a false, is this : It 

 consists only in the flower, and chiefly in the middle cup 

 or chalice ; for that we do in a manner only account 

 those to bee Pseudonarcissos, bastard Daffodils, whose 

 middle cup is altogether as long and sometimes a little 

 longer than the outer leaves that doe encompasse it, so that 

 it seemeth rather like a trunke or long nose than a cup 

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