Being a March baby, the daffodil is my birth flower, as well as one of my all-time favorite blooms.
Every year I look forward to attending the local Daffodil Festival that showcases a seemingly endless variety of cultivars with their striking color variations, shapes and scents.
The traditional and most well-known daffodil is yellow, white or a combination of the two colors. It has six petals that form a backdrop to its bell-shaped frilly corona, sometimes called a trumpet.
The genus name for the daffodil is Narcissus, which is a reference to the handsome, but tragic demigod of the same name. According to Greek mythology, after rejecting all suitors (both women and men), Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection while leaning down to drink from a still pool of water. He was unable to disentangle himself from the allure of his own image and was consumed from within by the heat of his passion, eventually transforming into a gold and white flower, the narcissus.
The daffodil is also sacred to the goddess Persephone, the embodiment of Spring and its new vegetation. Legend has it that she was gathering narcissus flowers when she was abducted by her uncle Hades and spirited off to the Netherworld. Under her auspices, the banks of the river Styx were lined with the flowers, which emitted an intoxicating fragrance of forgetfulness that mitigated all the pain suffered in life for the newly deceased.
The language of flowers or floriography was developed by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in the 17th Century. She was the wife of the English ambassador to the Sultan of Turkey and was intrigued by the Turkish court’s tradition of sending flowers as coded messages through which people would express feelings they dared not speak. In this secret language, daffodils signify rebirth and new beginnings because they are one of the first blossoms to appear in Spring. Their sunny color symbolizes comfort after the darkness of Winter, as well as joyful exuberance. But beware! Those blooms tinged with a reddish hue, suggest the vanity and destructive egotism of Narcissus.
Although beautiful, daffodils are poisonous to humans. Nonetheless, in ancient Rome the bulbs and roots were carefully processed and used medicinally as a treatment for cancer. Today, sending a bouquet of daffodils to a cancer patient conveys wishes of hope and healing.
Daffodil essential oil is highly aromatic and can be applied to the forehead to promote relaxation and sleep. And sweet-scented paperwhites are often force bloomed in Winter as harbingers of Spring soon to come.
Enjoy these beauties, Everyone! Spring is here and there’s no going back! Let’s celebrate and remember to…
Teach Love. Live Love. Be Love.
FYI — There are apricot, pink and blue-hued daffodil varieties now, but these newer cultivars have yet to be planted in my local State Park. Maybe next year!
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