Katherine Wagner-Reiss has her certificate in botany from NYBG and has been a tour guide at the Garden for two years.
Daffodils, narcissus, and jonquils can get jumbled in the mind, but they are easily sorted out.
Daffodil is the common name for spring-flowering bulbs in the genus Narcissus, of which there are over 50 species. One species, Narcissus jonquilla has its own common name, jonquil. When in doubt, you can never go wrong by calling any of these flowers “narcissus,” since they are all in that genus.
The name daffodil is an alteration of the name for another striking flower, the asphodel. No one knows how the initial “D” came to be added to daffodil. So lovely is the asphodel that it was said to grow in the Elysian Fields: blessed fields of the afterlife in ancient Greek literature. Asphodelus alba is planted in the NYBG Perennial Garden; I will certainly be looking for its bloom this summer!
The Rock Garden recently reopened for the season, with more little flowers appearing each day—including some of the tiniest daffodils you’ll see at NYBG!
The daffodils are waking! And with the first bloom of our massive expansion of the historic Narcissus collection on Daffodil Hill just beginning, it’s likely to be a huge year for these sunny flowers. Stay tuned.
Narcissus ‘February Gold’ in the Liasson Narcissus Collection – Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
It’s come in fits and starts this year. Snow falls one day, only to vanish in an instant through heat or a heavy rain. With all the yo-yoing we have experienced this winter, oscillating from warm to cold, the fluctuating temperatures have sent me and many of my colleagues home with lingering ailments as our bodies try to figure out what’s going on.
While walking through the Garden in these early days of spring, I notice that Mother Nature is equally confused. The persistent cold has slowed down the cycle of spring, leaving us somewhere between one and two weeks behind schedule in terms of spring bloom. Once the warm temperatures arrive in earnest, things will accelerate. What this means for now is that some of the early signs of spring–the ones that we usually like to see from our living room windows–are out and worth perusing.
The Cornelian cherries (Cornus mas) started flowering around the very end of March this year, whereas they usually bloom sometime in the middle of the month. As one of the many cheerful harbingers of spring, they’re a welcome sight; the 15-foot, multi-stemmed branching shrub is smothered with tiny umbels bursting with golden yellow, star-shaped flowers.
There may be no sign of spring more qualified to herald new buds and blooms than the dewy face of a yellow daffodil. They’re poking up here and there throughout the Garden, where they might as well be waving picket signs announcing that “WINTER IS SPENT.”
Daffodils, narcissus, and jonquils can get jumbled in the mind, but they are easily sorted out.
