78 DAFFODILS 



Why can we not content ourselves with the multi- 

 tude of kindly shrubs and herbs that are perfectly able 

 to withstand the thermal fluctuations of a British winter? 



The question seems peculiarly pertinent at the moment 

 of writing, when lawns and woodland are glorified with 

 sheets and wreaths and scattered companies of daffo- 

 dils, whereof the perfect beauty never palls, however 

 readily readers may weary of its written praise. 

 Shakespeare, Herrick, and Wordsworth between them 

 have silenced all later bards by the grace and fulness 

 with which they have praised the Lent lily. 



But restless Man is never content. If la rage du 

 mieux has fired him to much noble enterprise, it has 

 also egged him into much meddlesome and mischievous 

 interference with nature as planned by its Architect. 

 Of all flowers of the field, none has suffered more 

 unnecessary distortion at the hands of hybridisers and 

 florists than the common daffodil (Narcissus pseudo- 

 narcissus). Consummate itself in form and colour, 

 peerless in the subtle harmony of golden trumpet, 

 sulphur perianth and sea-green blades, unrivalled in 

 profusion of bloom, and dauntless under the most evil 

 vagaries of British springtide, it might surely have been 

 deemed a flower to satisfy the most fastidious taste. 

 Not so. It has been forced into unnatural alliance 

 with its kin, and made to beget a motley horde of 

 mongrels, wherein may be recognised the parental 



week of November 1912, when shrubs and herbs were full of sap 

 after a cold wet summer, the mercury suddenly fell to 14 F. The 

 winter following was very mild, February especially so, encouraging 

 premature growth, till on 18th March fresh havoc was wrought by 

 eleven degrees of frost. 



