Wild in the country

Val sings the praises of the Lent lily or wild daffodil

- By Val Bourne

I’M lucky enough to live in Gloucestershire and our county flower is the wild daffodil, Narcissus pseudonarcissus subsp. pseudonarcissus. It was once widespread in woods and meadows, and Richard Mabey’s excellent Flora Britannica says that John Gerrard recorded it in the 16th century as “almost euery where through England.” It was collected from the fields of Cheapside and sold as a cut flower in London.

However, the wild daffodil has suffered a decline since Gerrard’s day. It had already been lost from much of my county by the time the Rev. H. J. Riddelsdell’s Flora of Gloucestershire was published posthumously in 1948. Harry Joseph Riddelsdell (1866-1941) was one of many well-educated parsonnaturalists of the 19th century. This link between botany and religion isn’t surprising, because divinity students also studied the natural world. When they took up their positions with the church, they were confined to their parish. They couldn’t go far in case their parishioners needed to be able to get them in a hurry.