Daffodils are blooming here now. Their frilled trumpets are at the ready, seemingly waiting for the baton’s signal to blast “Hallelujah!” Some of the daffodils, including this one, are brightening fallow fields, apparently having been planted years ago in a garden or around a house that has disappeared.
Europeans reportedly brought daffodil bulbs to North America in the 1600s and the resulting plants have been one of the most popular flowers ever since.
Botanists designate “daffodils” as any plant within the genus Narcissus, which would include jonquils, paperwhites, and more than 20 other species, not to mention tens of thousands of hybrids.
However, as far as I can tell, most people consider the early spring flowers with the trumpet-shaped coronas and surrounding collars of petals (perianths), shown here, to be the “real” daffodils. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 23, 2022.)