DAFEY-DOWN-DILLIES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17948, 15 November 1918, Page 6

DAFEY-DOWN-DILLIES.

Is it the colour of the daffodil that captures the imagination every year, the moment it is seen dotting the meadows, as it does just when they are growing bright with the living green of spring, or does one revel more in the long bars cf gold beheld in perspective down a woodland glade, or is it their " dancing and shaking and dripping in wonderful figures," as Constance A nnfield paints them for us in words in her flower book. Exactly what the charm is no one can probably say, but everyone feels it is there and goes away better after the fresh aud wholesome and joyous sight. Many are the affectionate names bestowed. The oldest is Affo Dylo (that which coineth early), and this was later turned into daffodil. It seems natural that they should soon have been playfully calied " daffydillies" and "daffies." and that one should read in the ''lngoldsby Legends" of a garden decked with "Roses and lilies and daffydown dillies." The daffodil can claim no close con* nection with the royal lily family, because, as everyone can 6ee, its_ seed vessel is underneath and not inside the flower. But its own relations are among Borne of our favourite garden flowers. The snowdrop is just a daffodil dressed in'green and white with rather a bashful gait. They both live in the north. Further south pancratium decorates with, its large white flowers the warm shores of the Mediterranean. Hippeastrum, with its numerous lovely forms, affects Brazil, while at the Cape of Good Hope one finds the family at its best with amaryllis and' clivia, and a host of other famous bulbs. The daffodil itself grows only in western and central Europe;