LENT LILY WOOD 123 



competition, too, with other flowers, and the trees and 

 underwood still wear their winter dress. The elms, it 

 is true, are in blossom, and catkins are quivering on the 

 hazel boughs, but the branches are still bare of leaves. 

 Outside, near the keeper's cottage, the mossy banks are 

 starred with celandines, and here and there beneath 

 the oak-trees a few anemones will be found, but the 

 daffodils have almost complete possession of the wood. 

 And there for a season in countless hosts they reign in 

 tranquil splendour, every one perfect in its own loveli- 

 ness. Verily Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed 

 like one of these. 



In former days the daffodil seems to have been much 

 commoner than it is now. In the sixteenth century 

 Gerard says that " it groweth almost everywhere 

 through England," and, he adds, " the common yellow 

 Daffodill, or Daffodowndilly, is so well knowne to all 

 that it needeth no description." It is still well distri- 

 buted throughout the country, and in Hampshire it 

 occurs in many localities. I have met with it in various 

 places, but nowhere in such vast profusion as in the 

 Lent Lily Wood. There is a beautiful colony of it in a 

 large copse close to Quarr Abbey, in the Isle of Wight, 

 and it is curious to notice how partial the plant is to the 

 neighbourhood of monastic ruins. No doubt the good 

 brethren who were lovers of the beautiful delighted in 

 its presence and encouraged the bulbs to spread near 

 their sacred surroundings. It will be noticed that 

 Gerard speaks of the plant as " Daffodill or Daffodown- 

 dilly," and this second name, though it may sound a 

 vulgarism, dates back to very early times. We meet 

 with it in Spenser and in Constable and other sixteenth- 

 century writers. The origin of the name " daffodil " 



