![]() ![]() Blinks is an unobtrusive little plant which grows on bare muddy ground. However there is one plant, blinks ( Montana fontana) which links bulbs fields with Britain’s earliest agriculture. This means their remains either did not end up in archaeological features, or if they did, they have not been recognised as such. Additionally, since daffodils have no practical value, they weren’t brought into settlements for food production or other uses. This is because its pollen, seeds and bulbs are very similar to other species. Detail view of a painted roundel in St Pol de Leons Church, Paul, Cornwall Historic England, ref: DP031990 Daffodils and Archaeology Blinks seed from late Neolithic Silbury Hill © Historic Englandĭespite its association with ancient woodland there are no archaeobotanical records of wild daffodil. ![]() Today over 90% of daffodils sold worldwide are produced in Britain, with production centred on Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. His success meant that the idea quickly spread, first to Cornwall, and then beyond, to Lincolnshire and Scotland. He realised that he could use the new railway to transport the flowers to London. People began commercially growing daffodils for their flowers 145 years ago when Willam Trevellick, a potato farmer in the Isles of Scilly, realised that there might be a market for the daffodils that grew in and around his farm. The bulbs were tipped out onto the field edges where they continued to thrive. During the Second World War, the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign saw many daffodil fields ploughed and converted to growing food. Larger displays in hedgerows or along field margins may denote former bulb fields. Patches of daffodils on roadside verges or close to houses are usually the result of people discarding garden rubbish, or they mark the boundaries of former gardens. From Roadside to Flower Market Wild daffodils growing in a clearing, photograph taken by John Gay in 1971 © Historic England, ref: AA097144 This feature helps to differentiate it from other introduced daffodils, such as the Spanish daffodil, where the corona is the same colour as the tepals. The wild native daffodil has a corona (cup) which is darker than the petals (tepals). pseudonarcissus) which still grows in damp open woodlands and grasslands developed from former woodland, in the Lake District, Gloucestershire and other parts of Britain. These were our native wild daffodil ( Narcissus pseudonarcissus spp. William and Dorothy Wordsworth saw the daffodils which inspired the poem, when walking by the shores of Ullswater from their home at Dove Cottage, Grasmere. ![]() I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, William Wordsworth Wordsworth and the Daffodils Dove Cottage © Historic England, ref: DP056063 Gill Campbell, our Head of Environment Studies, explores the history and uses of daffodils over the years, in light of William Wordsworth’s birthday. ![]()
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