Narcissus pseudonarcissus

Amaryllidaceae. Bulbous perennial native to Western Europe, naturally present from the Iberian Peninsula to the British Isles and Western Germany, with relict populations in the Alps and the Massif Central. It is one of the wild species that gave rise to the vast majority of horticultural daffodils cultivated today.

In its natural habitat, it colonizes moist meadows, forest edges, stream banks, and mountain lawns, sometimes up to 2,000 meters in altitude in the Pyrenees. It forms clumps 20 to 35 cm in height. The leaves are upright, ribbon-like, glaucous. The flower, solitary on a hollow stem, combines two distinctly different shades of yellow, a feature immediately visible in the photographs: the tepals, spread out and slightly reflexed, are a pale sulfur yellow, while the crown, long and cylindrical, is a bright to golden yellow, significantly more intense. This bicolor contrast is one of the diagnostic traits of the species.

In its natural habitat, its flowering extends from March to May depending on altitude and latitude. In cultivation, it generally blooms in March-April.

Undemanding, it adapts to any ordinary fresh to moderately moist soil, in full sun or partial shade, and naturalizes easily in lawns mowed late. It is fully hardy.