Narcissus – Daffodils.
Family Amaryllidaceae s.l.
Over 50 species all commonly known as daffodils.
Jonquil is the common name for Narcissus jonquilla and its cultivars.
The bulbs have a membranous brown skin.
Short adventitious root hairs grow from the edge of the basal plate.
Plants can be from 5 cm up to 80 cm high.
The few basal leaves are mostly strap-like but in jonquils they are usually cylindrical.
They may or may not have stalks and there is a sheath at the base.
They are green or blue-green and have a waxy coating.
Leaves die after the fruit have ripened.
Each plant usually has only 1 inflorescence stalk holding 1 to 20 flowers.
The stalk has no leaves on it and is called a scape.
Some stems are flattened, others round with the upper part being hollow.
Where there are multiple flowers they are in an umbel-like arrangement.
Flowers have a papery protective spathe-like bract.
Flowers can attach to the stem or be on stalks that may have small bracteoles.
The bisexual, usually radially symmetric flowers have parts in 3’s.
They can be held at any angle from drooping to erect.
They are from 12 to 125 mm wide.
Nectaries are present in all species.
The 6 tepals form 2 perianth whorls and the corona a third.
The tepal bases are fused to form a floral or hypanthial tube.
The tube can be long or short, conical, funnel-shaped or cylindrical.
The tepal lobes can be bent backwards or spread outwards.
The lobes can be large or almost absent.
Basic colours are white and yellow.
A characteristic feature of Narcissus species is the corona.
This is a ring-like projection formed from the tepals.
It can be a small ring or large and shaped like a bell, funnel, bowl or trumpet.
The margin may be frilled or a different colour.
The 6 stamens can be in 1 or 2 whorls.
They are inserted onto the base or top of the floral tube and free of the corona.
Sometimes of different lengths they can be straight or curved.
The anthers are basifixed.
The inferior ovary has 3 fused carpels and 3 locules.
The style holds a 3-lobed stigma.
The fruit are loculicidal capsules with numerous, usually black, seeds.
Floral forms.
There is a large range of appearances between different species and the many cultivars and hybrids.
At the simplest they can be divided into 2 main groups plus an intermediate group.
Jonquils are any cultivar of Narcissus jonquilla. They have long, narrow leaves, long tubular stems
with clusters of small flowers that have a narrow tube and flaring tepal lobes.
They can be white, yellow, cream, red, orange or multicoloured.
Trumpet daffodils, in the Section Pseudonarcissus, typically have a short, wide floral tube
and an elongated corona up to 5 cm long.
There is usually only one flower on each inflorescence stalk.
The corona may be a different colour from the tepal lobes.
Daffodil societies use 13 sections.
Trumpet narcissus, one flower per stem, corona at least as long as the tepal lobes.
Large-cupped narcissus, one flower per stem, corona at least 1/3 of the tepal lobe length
up to almost equal in length.
Small-cupped narcissus, one flower per stem, corona up to 1/3 of the tepal lobe length.
Double narcissus, 1 or more flowers per stem, tepal lobes +/or the corona doubled.
Jonquilla narcissus, 1 or more flowers per stem, narrow leaves, 1 to 3 fragrant flowers on
cylindrical stems with the tepal lobes spread out.
Other divisions are the Triandrus, Cyclamineus, Tazetta, Poeticus, Bulbocodium hybrids, Split Corona
and Miscellaneous Narcissus plus the Species, Wild Variants and Wild hybrids.
J.F.
