Plant · P-173

Wild Daffodil

Narcissus pseudonarcissus

Wild Daffodil is the small, true-species trumpet daffodil - bright yellow flowers on foot-tall stems in late winter to spring, on a bulb that dies back to bare ground by early summer. Its main job in a planted guild is protective rather than ornamental: every part of the plant is poisonous, and ringing fruit trees with the bulbs is standard practice for turning voles and gophers away from tree roots, while its foliage discourages deer and other browsers above ground. It tolerates heavy clay soil well, unlike most bulbs and groundcovers, but it cannot take standing water, and a bulb extract applied to an open wound has caused nerve staggering, numbness and heart paralysis - reason enough to keep it away from any ground poultry scratch in, since scratching is exactly what exposes the most toxic part.