Echo and Narcissus

Tulips and daffodils are the best known of all spring flowers. Isn't this urn pretty right now? There's some pink tulips in there too, and they should bloom in time for Nova's first Easter.

The correct botanic name for the daffodil genus is Narcissus, which includes over 100 cultivated species and wild variants. The great "classifier" Linnaeus chose the name Narcissus from Greek mythology:

Echo and Narcissus
John Waterhouse

The beautiful nymph Echo fell for the beautiful young man Narcissus, but he rejected her. She cried to Cupid for help, but Cupid caused Narcissus to fall in love with his own image in a reflecting pool. Entranced with himself, he wasted away and died beside the water while Echo watched. When the nymphs prepared his funeral pyre, his body was transformed into the flower we call a Narcissus.

There are many literary references to daffodils. One of the most famous is by the great English Romantic poet, William Wordsworth:

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd--
A host of golden daffodils.
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Daffodils
William Wordsworth