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daffodil


Значение термина daffodil в knolik


daffodil - DAFFODIL (Narcissus pseudo-narcissus)
daffodil - "When daffodils begin to peer -
With heigh! the doxy over the dale-
Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year,
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale."
Shakespeare.

"Daffodils, that come before the swallow dares, and take the winds of March with beauty," are inseparably bound up in thought with the gladness of spring, with lengthening days, and the welcome return of the sun to power.

When Daffodils appear other flowers press close behind.

"Herald and harbinger! with thee
Begins the year's great jubilee!
Of her solemnities sublime
A sacristan whose gusty taper
Flashes through earliest morning vapour,
Thou ring'st dark nocturns and dim prime."
Sir Aubrey de Vere.

For the plant's preparation for its flower's advent we must go back almost a year; in fact, to the time when its one yellow flower - there is only one a year - withered the previous spring, for then its four or five leaves - long, thin and pale green - commenced to develop. Larger, coarser, and deeper green they became, and the manufacture of foodstuffs went on apace within them. Oxygen and carbon were absorbed from the air; nitrogen and various salts in solution from the soil, and they met in the cells of the leaves, and were worked up by the aid of myriads of little green bodies - the chlorophyll corpuscles - which were there. The summer sun supplied the motor power, and as the store material was formed it was passed down the long stalkless leaves in liquid form to that storehouse below the ground that every Daffodil has - the bulb. There it became solid starch grains and swelled the bulb, and made it hard and firm until needed in the New Year.

Now a bulb, to be precise, is really a compound affair. In the centre is a dwarf stem bearing leaf and flower-buds; surrounding it are layer upon layer of scales, thick and white because of the starch they have stored. Outside these are dry, brown scales which largely protect the inner white ones from small nibbling animals. By midsummer days the bulb was filled, the store completed, and the leaves, their work done, were yellow and dead, and soon the plant had faded from the face of the earth to sleep until its reappearance with the spring.

When the increasing warmth of the sun wakes it the leaves and flower-stalk push upwards. For their growth they call upon the reserve store in the white scales. By the action of some ferment this once more becomes soluble, and passes into the growing parts, which rapidly develop. In the centre of the long, flat, narrow leaves the flower-bud is at first covered by a scaly wrapper. It pushes through this and stands erect, a long-pointed oval. As the days pass it droops to one side, the yellow petals burst through the green bud scales, and the flower is before us. The simile of the " sacristan's gusty taper" for the long yellow flower as it stretches away almost at right angles from its stalk and flutters in the breeze is very apt. It has only one ring of floral leaves - sepals and petals are merged in it - and this is tubular below and spreading above. The most striking feature of the flower is the large golden "corona" that it bears round the top of the tube. It is largely to this that the flower owes its attractiveness. The lower part of the yellow tube has a lining of honey cells, and out of these plenty of honey filters amply to satisfy visitors from the insect world. These are chiefly bees from neighbouring hives whom the spring sun has waked with the Daffodils, though sometimes some of the wild bees, particularly the genus Andrena, visit them. The pale yellow blooms shine out well, too, at night, and attract the early-season moths.

Now, there are six tall stamens in a Daffodil in the floral tube, and their pairs of pollen boxes open towards the centre. The seed-case is outside the flower, below the yellow perianth, but somewhat protected by the dry brown scale that once enfolded the bud. From the top of the case rises up through the flower a long, firm column which passes beyond the stamens and out into the open. On it the bees and moths mostly alight, and thus at once cover it with any pollen they may be carrying. Between it and the stamens they push down to the honey, and thus they unconsciously renew their dusty coat of pollen from the inward-opening stamens. Sometimes, it is true, they prefer to balance themselves on the crown rather than on the ovary column, but even then they cannot help carrying away the flower-pollen with them. Self-fertilisation is very improbable in the Daffodil, since the ovary column is longer than the stamens and, consequently, its receptive tip beyond their reach.

The fruit is a capsule. If it be cut through in early days the three chambers of the ovary can be plainly seen, also the double column of seeds each contains. When ripe it opens by three valves atop.

But the propagation of the Daffodil is chiefly by the multiplication of bulbs. One buds off from another below ground, the attaching tissues decay, the pull of the roots of the daughter bulb draws it a little apart, and thus, when once the plant gets a foothold, it can cover by degrees a large area.

The Daffodil family is the Amaryllideæ, a family but poorly represented in our country - the snowdrop, the snowflake, and a pale variety of Daffodil known as Primrose Peerless being the only other representatives - though in sunnier and drier parts of the world it has many other members, such as the alstroemeria and the agave, and all the hundreds of varieties of narcissi.

In late years the Daffodil's message of spring has been brought with special force to the dwellers in large cities, who, moreover, receive it earlier than the country folk of the surrounding districts, for they do not know the Daffodil till late in March. Directly the New Year is in, in the very deadest time of the year, suddenly market stalls and florists' shops are lighted up by yellow blossoms from a warmer climate. One of the most remarkable minor developments of our present-day civilisation is the creation of this trade in cut flowers, and of that trade the branch that deals with the supply of Daffodils and other narcissi is the oldest and by far the largest. It is just about forty years ago that the first box of cut Daffodils was sent from the Scilly Isles to Covent Garden Market. Encouraged by the success of the simple venture, the islanders began to collect and transplant the wild bulbs that grew so freely in their mild and equable climate, and thus their definite cultivation began. The demand increased with the supply, and now more than five hundred acres are given over to the production of flowers for market, the greater part of these being Daffodils and narcissi in general. In Lincolnshire, too, especially in the Spalding and Wisbech districts, bulb cultivation has developed into an important industry.

Anyone who has been privileged to see these Daffodil fields in all their golden glory of fluttering flowers by the thousand thousand will be at one with Wordsworth who also once saw " a crowd, a host of golden Daffodils," -

"Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
…
The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company."

- and will say with the poet, as the memory afterwards flashes upon him:

"And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the Daffodils."

Рядом со словом daffodil в knolik


field scabiousВ начало
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буквосочетание ""		daisy

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