84 WHEN DAFFODILS BEGIN TO PEER 



But Lenten lilies the glory at this season of our 

 lawns and cool northern pastures though near of kin 

 to the Asiatic kinds, are connected with the East only 

 by their name. Daffodil, embroidered by Spenser into 

 daffadowndilly, came to us through the old French 

 asphodile, from the Greek ao-<oSeXo5, and here again 

 we are in risk of controversy as to what the asphodel 

 really was. Perhaps in future ages, when the flow of 

 English literature has been dried up, Japanese wise- 

 acres will puzzle their brains over the exact plant 

 meant by the daffodil, which has had such a fascination 

 for English poets from Shakespeare to Keats. Mean- 

 while it is ours to enjoy it as perhaps the most beautiful 

 of our native wild flowers. 



It has other qualities besides beauty to endear it. 

 It ' comes before the swallows dare ' ; not fastidious 

 about soil or culture (magna cura non indigent 

 narcissi, says an early English authority), it only re- 

 quires to be planted and left at liberty, and it enjoys 

 the constitution of a coltsfoot ; for, although the race 

 has its peculiar foe a fly (Crioceris narcissi) of which 

 the maggot makes the bulb its exclusive diet this only 

 prevails in hot climates and dry soils ; in our northern 

 latitudes it is almost unknown. Hence, though in 

 Britain it is probably only a true native of some of the 

 southern and midland counties, the common daffodil 

 (Narcissus pseudo-narcissus) has established itself 

 firmly all over the land, as far north as Caithness and 

 as far west as Connemara. Nowhere can it be seen in 

 greater profusion than in Lakeland, where Wordsworth 



