DAFFODIL

27th February 2024

Photo Credit: hmproudlove (Getty Images Signature), CANVA

QUOTATION

When daffodils begin to peer,

With heigh, the doxy over the dale,

Why, then comes in the sweet o’ the year,

For the red blood reigns in the winter’s pale.

AUTOLYCUS: Winter’s Tale, Act 4, Scene 3

DAFFADIL/DAFFADILLY (Wild Daffodil: Narcissus pseudo-narcissus)

The Daffodil, Shakespeare uses the spellings ‘Daffadil’ and ‘Daffadillies’, appears twice in his works. In Autolycus’s song for the coming spring above and in Two Noble Kinsmen the Wooer talks of maids with chaplets of ‘daffadillies’ on their heads.

Daffodils were both common wild plants and valued garden plants. John Gerard (1597) lists several types of wild and garden Daffodils which grew in Shakespeare’s England.

The Wild Daffodil (Narcissus pseudonarcissus subsp. pseudonarcissus) may be the only native Daffodil in Britain. There are many other naturalised and cultivated Daffodils in gardens, parks and other habitats.

More Information

BSBI Plant Atlas 2020: Narcissus pseudonarcissus subsp. pseudonarcissus

Folger Shakespeare Library: Search Shakespeare’s Works

Gerard, J. 1597 The Herball, or Generall Historie of Plants (1636 edition accessed via Archive.org)

Thomas, V. & Faircloth, N. 2016 Shakespeare’s Plants and Gardens. Arden Shakespeare’s Dictionaries, Bloomsbury.