Deceptive but delightful daffs
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They are one of the ultimate cliches of spring: cheerful, resilient, as happy as lambs. But don’t be fooled by the daffodil’s frilly bonnets and flirty Wordsworthian dance moves for these hardy strumpets are guilty of seducing many a green-fingered fool into believing, prematurely, that winter is already over.
Then again, why not look on the bright side?
‘‘You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life,’’ says popular philosopher Alain De Botton, ‘‘to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.’’
It’s a theory that author and cancer survivor Helen O’Neill subscribes to in her new book, Daffodil: Biography of a Flower (HarperCollins), which traces the journey of this golden joy from vulgar outcast to beloved garden bloom.
Though trading in daffodil bulbs never quite reached the speculative fetishism of orchid fever, Dutch tulipomania or the current Auckland property market, Victorian-era bulb merchants systematically stripped them from Spanish and Portuguese mountains, collecting the white-flowered Narcissus alpestris to the point of extinction.
Meanwhile, the yellow forms were considered garish until Oscar Wilde started giving lectures on the merits of this sunniest of colours.
Here are some more fun facts about daffodil bulbs:
They come from the same family as garlic, leeks, chives and onions.
DNA testing has confirmed 36 distinct daffodil species.
Depending on your preference for language or mythology, their botanical name, narcissus, hails from the Greek narkao, meaning to numb, or from the Roman poet Ovid’s tale of Narcissus. (The spunky son of Liriope and Cephissus, he was so transfixed by his own reflection in the river that he died looking at it. Meanwhile, a daffodil bloomed beside him, its head bowed, as if also admiring itself.)
Daffodils take about seven years to flower from seed.
It takes more than 1.6 million blooms to make a single kilogram of concentrated Narcissus poeticus essence, which is prized by French perfume manufacturers for its ‘‘hay and honey undertones’’.
In the Victorian language of flowers, daffodils stood for everything from chivalry to unrequited love.
The conservation trust that manages the Isles of Scilly, owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, pays Prince Charles a peppercorn rental of one daffodil per annum.
Daffodils are antisocial in a mixed bouquet. Studies have shown that it only takes four hours for their sap to start killing roses, irises and freesias in the same vase. That same sap gives florists dermatitis.
All parts of the plant – flowers, foliage and bulbs – are toxic. ‘‘From poison, can come cure,’’ writes O’Neill. In 1956, the Canadian Cancer Society held its first official Daffodil Day fundraiser.
The idea went viral, so pin a daff to your lapel on Friday and make a generous donation to the New Zealand Cancer Society.
When I moved to the Hunua Ranges six years ago, daffodils were one of my early extravagances, for what is a country garden without them? I bought a box of 300 bulbs – a lolly scramble of 200 mixed varieties and another hundred fancies.
The fancies included ‘Sorbet’, described in the bulb catalogue as ‘‘a rampant propagator’’ with a split cup of deepest apricot, giving it the appearance of a child’s $2-shop party windmill; doubleflowered ‘Acropolis’, which flashes its orange knickers under a full white petticoat; ‘Madison’, similar but for a yellow wedgie; and virginal ‘Obdam’, which looks not at all like a daffodil but like a crumpled ball of white tissues padding out a teenage girl’s bra.
I also planted five pricey bulbs of the pure white, large-cupped white narcissus ‘Snowdean’, a daffodil so obscure that when you search for it on Google, the first result is headlined: ‘‘Where is Edward Snowden, and what will happen to him?’’
Quite fitting, really, because Snowden sightings are as elusive as my ‘Snowdean’ daffs, which flowered once then disappeared beneath a carpet of rampant violets, never to be seen again.
When I moved to the Hunua Ranges six years ago, daffodils were one of my early extravagances, for what is a country garden without them?