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DAFFODILS IN SPAIN

© Mary Lou Gripshover

How does the song go? Wild thing, you make my heart sing? Something like that, anyway. That pretty accurately describes my feelings when I saw daffodils growing in their native habitat in Spain several years ago.

My traveling companions and I left the Madrid airport, heading south. In rolling countryside with scrub oak growing among rocks, someone comments that the terrain looks promising for daffodils. Yeah, right, think I. Sure enough, within a couple of minutes the creamy blooms of N. triandrus were spotted. We stopped for a closer look, and found that N. triandrus grows singly, not in clumps.

The following day we found more N. triandrus near a picnic area. Much further up the hill N. cantabricus, best described as a white N. bulbocodium, was found, most of which was in seed.

The next species we found was the miniature yellow N. baeticus which some authors calls N. assoanus var. praelongus. It was growing in great profusion on the mountainside in unbelievable limestone rocks. We're talking major boulders here!

We headed next to Cazorla National Park. Our route took us by a site that had been mentioned for N. cuatrecasasii var. segimonensis, another miniature yellow flower. Again, it was growing in limestone rocks, some right along the road, and some higher up.

My companions had seen N. longispathus growing in Cazorla National Park on a previous visit and were anxious to find it again. We found it growing amongst bracken in grass. Most had one typical yellow trumpet bloom per stem, but a few had the more desirable two blooms per stem.

We set out next for the Sierra de Salinas, checking likely locations for N. dubius. We were about to give up, and head further north, but decided to check one more location. Our veteran hiker volunteered to climb up to look, just in case. She came running down saying, "It's up there, it's up there!" So we climbed up, too, and there it was. It was mostly over, but we found lots of seed capsules--one, two, three, and even four per stem; some short, some tall. We found one with its two white blooms open that was in fair condition.

We set out early next morning for Valdelinares searching for N. pseudonarcissus ssp. eugeniae. After looking in vain for some time, we headed down the mountain and finally found N. ps. eugeniae in abundance growing in very short turf. It grew all over the hillside, but there seemed to be a river of yellow as it followed the runoff from the melting snows down the mountain. The blooms open almost at ground level and though they are short, the flower is not in proportion. Some have wide perianths, some are starry.

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