DAFFODIL CONFERENCE AND EXHIBITION. 



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had become. They were highly valued in that great and general 

 renaissance which spread over Europe in Elizabethan and 

 Shakesperian times. The French and Flemish works of the 

 period are rich in illustrations and descriptions of these flowers. 

 Dodoens, Lobel, Clusius, Passe, Besler, Sweert, and many others, 

 all illustrate and describe these flowers. So also, in the merry 

 England of those times, we find that Turner and Tusser both 

 mention Narcissus and Daffodils, and Gerard and Parkinson de- 

 vote pages to them, with many wood-cut illustrations. Parkinson, 

 indeed, seems to have been one of the earliest of English 

 authorities on these flowers, as he alludes to 9G species and 

 varieties, and he arranges or classifies them in a decided manner 

 in his interesting old folio, entitled the " Paradisus," a work now 

 difficult to procure, but one which no Narcissus lover would like 

 to be absent from his or her library. Green, Spenser, Shake- 

 speare, indeed nearly all the poets of Elizabethan times, mention 

 our flowers either as Narcissus, as Jonquils, or as Daffodils, and 

 Gerard (1597) especially tells us that they existed in London 

 gardens in great abundance. 



As in Egypt and in Greece the Narcissus, so also in England 

 the Daffodil, became a celebrated flower in the making of gar- 

 lands, and they were also much used, as an old author tells us, 

 for the decking up of houses and of taverns when the springtide 

 was a-comin' in. 



Daffodils, Native and Exotic. 



There can be but little doubt but that the Daffodil is a truly 

 English wild flower, and is, I believe, the only species really 

 native to this country. Any traveller to-day on his journey 

 from Paris to London might see the Daffodil fringing the 

 fields and woods alongside the railroad all the way. It is 

 especially abundant in the woods of Normandy, between Bouen 

 and the sea ; and it is also pretty plentiful in the southern 

 counties of England. But the English people have always been 

 especially fond of ransacking the world in search of its treasures, 

 and much as they may have valued their native wild flowers, 

 they also had a hankering after those of other lands. 



Several kinds, including the " Double Boman," appear to 

 have reached this country via Constantinople, while others came 



