The cult of the daffodil

Spring is the season of supermarket daffodils. At a pound a bunch, you can deck out your home like Elton John and still have change from a fiver. From January until April, daffodils burst from village greens and quiet churchyards. The wild daffodil found across Britain is the Narcissus pseudonarcissus, known also as the ‘Lent lily’. Native to northern Europe, the hardy bulbs followed the British empire around the world and can now be found in Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the Falklands.

There are thought to be 27,000 different cultivars of daffodil bred from 36 different species. Most are yellow but there are white varieties and a few with splashes of pink. Generally the flowers are a trumpet-like corona encircled by petals. Any plant that falls into the Narcissus genus is commonly called a ‘daffodil’, a word originally associated with the Asphodel Meadows where the souls of dead ancient Greeks were said to wander around.