Bill's Botanical Forays

Today, I went on a botanical foray in Oldtown Elkridge concentrating on the area around the Thomas Viaduct and found several interesting exotics and even a few natives.

Pictured here is the Poet’s Daffodil – Narcissus poeticus L.  It is native to south and central Europe and had become naturalized in other parts of the world including Maryland. At this location, there were several dozen plants.

Its short yellow reddish rimmed corona is a distinctive characteristic of this species.

The origin of the name Poet’s Narcissus is not clear, but one version states that the poet Virgil wrote about a Narcissus which matched the description of this plant in his fifth Eclogue. Theosphratus (371 – c. 287 BCE), in his botanical writings wrote about a spring blooming narcissus which subsequent writers consider to be this species.

REFERENCES:

Bourne, Stephen Eugene; W. L. Foster (1903). The Book of the Daffodil. J. Lane. p. 3.

Linnaeus, Carl von. 1753. Species Plantarum 1: 289, Narcissus poeticus