Giant Fennel, Ferula communis

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“From a huge mound of dark-green, finely-cut foliage rises the vast flower-stalk, thick as a broomstick, purple tinted, topped with yellow umbellifer flowers.” – Description of Giant Fennel, Ferula communis, on Beth Chatto’s Plants & Gardens website.

Giant Fennel, Ferula communis (with touring bikes)

Giant Fennel, Ferula communis (with touring bikes). Gorges de l’Ardèche, France, 21st June 2008.

Giant Fennel Abroad

I first noticed Giant Fennel, Ferula communis, in June 1987 in Corsica, growing in the Gorges de Tavignano near Corte (note 1). But my first photograph of the plant (shown above) is from many years later, from a fortnight’s cycle touring in southern France.

Giant Fennel is very impressive when in flower, when each plant has a stem two to three metres (6 – 10 feet) tall, topped with umbels of flowers in bright yellow ball-like clusters. These glow in sunshine and especially in low evening or morning light. Ferula communis is made even more dramatic by the dramatic, rocky surroundings in which it grows.

Giant Fennel, Ferula communis is a native of Mediterranean Europe, the Middle East and East Africa, as far south as Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. It is much bigger and more dramatic than Common Fennel, Foeniculum vulgare, which is is used as a culinary herb and ornamental plant. Both plants have umbels of flowers and are members of the Apiaceae (Carrot family). You can compare pictures and descriptions of the two plants on the Flora of East Anglia website (note 2).

In its native range Giant Fennel grows on both rocky and grassy hill slopes and, in East Africa, on mountain tops, in open forest, wooded grassland (both dry and wet) and on pasture land.

Giant Fennel At Home

Giant Fennel needs well drained soil and plenty of sunshine, with some late winter and early spring rainfall during its main growth period.

Although Ferula communis is native to hot, sunny climes it can grow in parts of the British Isles.  It is sometimes grown in gardens and naturalises from time to time (note 3). Giant Fennel is only hardy down to about minus 5 degrees Celsius, so a particularly cold winter could wipe out an established plant. However, human activity can do this too. Mike Crewe recounts on his Flora of East Anglia website that “a single plant beside the A11 north of Barton Mills was something of a celebrity for many years and even earned its own roadside nature reserve“, but was destroyed when the A11 was dualled.

I acquired a Giant Fennel plant several years ago and it grows in a sheltered, south facing raised bed in our front garden (note 4).

Ferula communis is a perennial plant which develops a sturdy tap root and can take several years to produce flowers. Younger plants produce feathery leaves in late winter and early spring, which yellow and die back later in the spring, leaving no trace of the plant.

This happened for several years with our plant, but this March we noticed it was starting to produce a flowering shoot.

The flower shoot grew upwards rapidly and reached full height in early April.

Giant Fennel, 2nd April 2023.

In bud. Our Giant Fennel, 2nd April 2023.

The umbels developed quickly too and the flowers opened from mid April and were at their peak in late April and early May. (It can be later – some websites list flowering time as early summer or even July and August.)

Giant Fennel, 8th May 2023.

In full glory. Our Giant Fennel, 8th May 2023.

As I write this in early June the stems have developed their purple tint and the plant has set seed, though only on the largest umbels.

Giant Fennel, 5th June 2023.

Gone to seed. Our Giant Fennel, 5th June 2023.

Our plant leant forward as it grew, partly to reach more light and partly as it was dashed down by heavy rain in late April and early May. I had to tie it up with a piece of string; a large stake would probably have been more elegant.

I am not sure whether our Giant Fennel will flower again. Ferula communis is often thought to be monocarpic (plants flower once, set seed then die). However, “others beg to differ, including renowned plantsman Bob Brown of Cotswold Garden Flowers“. Apparently if the flowering stem is removed before it has had a chance to set seed, the plant will live to flower again. I plan to let the seed ripen on our plant and I will need to wait until late winter to see whether our plant is still alive.

I wonder whether last year’s heat and drought, followed by winter rain and a sunny February enticed our plant to flower.

Giant Fennel: toxic and edible chemotypes

Common Fennel, Foeniculum vulgare, is a useful edible plant (both as a flavouring herb and a vegetable).  But I would suggest treating Giant Fennel purely as an ornamental plant.

Sensible advice is that “though in the same family as culinary fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), Giant Fennel is considered toxic to ingest and should not be eaten“.

The Plants For A Future website says that the leaves of Ferula communis are edible and according to Wikipedia the young stems and inflorescences of Ferula communis were eaten in ancient Rome, and are still eaten in Morocco today. The Gozo In The House website says that unopened inflorescences can be steamed and served with added olive oil and vinegar.

So far, so good. But the problem is that there are two different chemotypes of Ferula communis and plants that look identical can contain different levels of secondary metabolites, making one plant toxic and the other harmless (note 5).

Other Uses

The resin contained in the roots of Giant Fennel has been used for medicinal purposes, to cure a variety of ailments. (See the Gozo In The House website for more details of medicinal uses.) The related plant Ferula assa-foetida, from southern Iran, gives us the smelly ingredient asafoetida, used in Indian cooking (note 6).

Giant Fennel stems were used to make rods and whips for disciplinary purposes. The Latin word ferire (to hit), and the Swedish färla (a disciplinary tool used in schools in the past) come from Ferula.

Hollow stalks of Giant Fennel were sometimes used as torches, as they contain a flammable pith that burns slowly and evenly without destroying the outer stalk. This is said to be how Prometheus, in Ancient Greek mythology, stole fire from the Olympian gods and to give to humanity (note 7).

We plan to dry most of our plant’s stem as an ornament but will cut a small section of the lower stem once it has dried, to use as a torch.

Grow Your Own Giant Fennel

Ferula communis seeds are available from several suppliers, such as Plant World Seeds and Special Plants Nursery. A glaucous variety of Ferula communis, ssp. glauca, is sometimes available from Beth Chatto’s Plants & Gardens as a potted plant.

Tawny Mining Bee, Andrena fulva, on Giant Fennel.

Female Tawny Mining Bee, Andrena fulva, on our Giant Fennel.

Insects like the flowers – beetles and bees in Crete and in southern France. In our garden it attracted a variety of bees and flies, though the weather was rather cold and windy this spring and I would expect more insect visitors in warmer weather.

I would certainly recommend growing Giant Fennel, if you have the patience to wait for it to flower and well drained soil and a sunny, sheltered spot in your garden. The reward is worth it, I think.

Notes

Note 1 – I know this because I made a note in pencil in the guide to Mediterranean flowers that I bought there.

Note 2 – There are also other species of Ferula in the Mediterranean area, such as Ferula tingitana (Giant Tangier Fennel), which I have seen growing on the rock of Gibraltar and Ferula melitensis (Maltese Giant Fennel), which is endemic to the island of Malta.

Note 3 – On page 858 of the “New Flora of the British Isles“ by Clive Stace (Fourth Edition, 2019) mentions naturalised colonies on roadside verges in West Suffolk since 1988, in Northamptonshire (1956 – 1988 and 1996) and South Essex since 2004.

Note 4 – I’m trying to remember where it came from. I thought I grew it from seed but I now think I bought the plant in a pot from somewhere.

Note 5 – See Zucca et. al., “Isolation and characterization of polyphenol oxidase from Sardinian poisonous and non-poisonous chemotypes of Ferula communis (L.)”. Phytochemistry Vol. 90, pp 16 – 24 (2013).

Note 6 – The Ancient Greeks and Romans used silphium as a seasoning in their cookery, and as a perfume, aphrodisiac, medicine and contraceptive. It probably came from a species of Ferula, or a closely related plant. Is that plant now extinct? Pliny thought so.

Note 7 – Prometheus suffered for this. His  punishment was to be tied in chains and for an eagle (Zeus’ animal familiar) to eat his liver. Every night his liver regenerated and the punishment resumed the next day.

Shining Crane’s-bill, Geranium lucidum

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Shining Cranesbill, Geranium lucidum

Shining Crane’s-bill, Geranium lucidum

Mid spring is the season for Shining Crane’s-bill, Geranium lucidum, an annual that appears early in the year and is in flower from April or early May.

Geranium lucidum has long, brittle, fleshy, hairless stems, which grow up to 35cm (14 inches) long. Its small pink flowers are spaced widely apart, so they complement rather than cover the plant’s distinctive five-lobed glossy green leaves. When the plant is in its prime these leaves really do shine (note 1).

Shining Crane’s-bill can continue flowering right through the summer but in the drier parts of the country it will be past its best by mid to late June. Its stems are often red and the whole plant can turn red as it ages, especially in a dry and sunny place.

Like other species of Geranium (part of the family Geraniaceae) each flower develops into a dry fruit (known as a schizocarp) that splits open (dehisces) to release five dry seeds (achenes) (note 2).

Thriving on Disturbance

Shining Crane’s-bill, Geranium lucidum, is a plant that thrives on disturbance.

When I cycle south-west of Norwich I often head along Potash Lane in Hethel, past the Motor Works (note 3).

The northern part of the lane is blocked off to motor traffic and is lined by hedges. I have seen Bullfinches there on several occasions and it was a great place to pick blackberries and rosehips. Then last summer a Norfolk County Council Highways Team hacked back all the hedges and restored the road to its full width. Their work cut down the roses and brambles and thinned and shortened the hedges, removing the supply of fruit. It can’t have done the Bullfinches any good either.

Recovery will be slow but this spring, at least the verges are green again. The increase in light and disturbance to the ground has caused a population explosion of Shining Crane’s-bill, Geranium lucidum.

Shining Cranesbill, Geranium lucidum

A population explosion of Shining Crane’s-bill, Geranium lucidum. Potash Lane, Hethel, 8th May 2023.

My first encounter with Geranium lucidum was at our previous house, where it grew in cracks in the concrete around our next door neighbour’s paths. It moved into our garden and must have hitched a lift in a plant pot to our current garden. Shining Crane’s-bill has now spread along the edges of the flower beds in the shadier part of the garden. It is doing well here – and elsewhere too.

Where the Shining Crane’s-bill grows

Geranium lucidum is native to the British Isles and occurs in most 10 kilometre squares in England and Wales. Its distribution is patchier in Ireland and its distribution thins out in Northern Scotland. The BSBI Plant Atlas records that there has been a marked increase in its abundance and 10km square range since the mid twentieth century and that “this has continued in the last two decades, particularly in south-eastern and eastern England, Scotland and Ireland” (note 4).

Shining Crane’s-bill’s natural home seems to be on calcareous soils: on rock outcrops, limestone pavements and scree. But it has adapted well to man-made habitats: gardens (sometimes deliberately introduced), roadsides, on and at the base of mortared walls, in churchyards, on waste ground and on railway ballast. Nowadays it is spreading into places with more acid soils too, such as Cheshire, where it grows on very acid Cheshire sandstone.

Outside the British Isles, Geranium lucidum is native to many European countries, including Scandinavia and Southern Europe, eastwards into Ukraine and southern Russia but excluding the Netherlands and Poland. Its range continues eastwards through Turkey, Iran and Iraq into Asia as far east as India and down into North Africa (Morocco, Libya, Algeria and Tunisia).

Geranium lucidum was introduced into the United States as a garden plant and now occurs in the states of California, Oregon and Washington. It has also been introduced to Canada (Vancouver Island in British Columbia; detected in 1982) and Australia and New Zealand.

Spreading to America

Shining Crane’s-bill was first detected growing wild in the United States in 1971. Its powers of dispersal are impressive.

In Oregon, it is well established in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, where the climate suits it well and it has been able to invade oak woodlands and open grasslands. Other hotspots include similar habitats and forest clearings in the Portland area, northern California, Bayview State Park in Skagit County, Washington and in southwest Washington.

Shining Crane’s-bill can rapidly dominate the areas it colonises to the exclusion of native herbaceous species. Seeds are scattered explosively and even in still air the seeds can travel up to six metres (20 feet). Humans can help dispersal too: the plant spread from Oregon to Washington in contaminated nursery plants and may also be able to spread as a contaminant of agricultural seed. Seeds persist in the seed bank for more than a year. Geranium lucidum can sometimes be found growing with its relation Herb Robert (known in North America as Roberts Geranium), Geranium robertianum, also introduced from Europe.

Geranium lucidum infestation

An infestation of Geranium lucidum in White Oak woodland at Mt. Pisgah in Oregon, United States. Image: Bruce Newhouse, Bugwood.org.

There is considerable potential for Geranium lucidum to spread further in the United States. The USDA report “Weed Risk Assessment for Geranium lucidum L. (Geraniaceae) – Shining cranesbill” (2013) estimates that about 54 percent of the United States and 4 percent of Canada is suitable for the establishment of Geranium lucidum. At the time of the report it was “currently not a direct threat to threatened and endangered species [but] it could make habitat restoration for rare species difficult”. According to the Oregon Department of Agriculture, Shining Crane’s-bill “[utilises] the abundance of early spring moisture… quickly establishes, dominating sites by smothering other early spring wildflowers and the seedlings of perennial plants. As soils dry, few other plants are able to establish through the receding weed canopy“.

Shining Crane’s-bill is now classed as a noxious weed in parts of the United States, including King County in Washington state. It is prohibited to transport, buy, sell, offer for sale, or to distribute plants or plant parts, seeds in packets, blends or “wildflower mixes” of this species, into or within the state of Washington.

The King County Noxious Weeds website lists ways to control Geranium lucidum. Shoes and vehicles should be cleaned after visiting infested areas and new plantings should be checked, in case the plant has hitchhiked from a nursery. Small patches of Geranium lucidum can be weeded by hand (removing the plant material, rather than composting it) and larger patches by mulching or the use of herbicides.

Don’t Panic!

In its native range Geranium lucidum is more adapted to its environment and is unlikely to be a problem.

If you find Shining Crane’s-bill to be a nuisance in the garden, it is easily pulled up by hand, the earlier in the season the better if you don’t want it to set seed.

I remove some of my plants when they’re growing in the wrong place, but leave most of it to grow.

Edibility

Not much seems to eat Shining Crane’s-bill. The Plants For A Future website says that Geraniums “are rarely if ever troubled by browsing deer or rabbits” and in my garden I find them slug- and snail-proof too.

The plant has no known edible uses for humans. Bug Woman (whose excellent website I found while researching Shining Crane’s-bill) couldn’t find a single recipe and nor can I. Medicinally, it is diuretic and astringent (note 5).

According to the Bug Woman – Adventures In London website Shining Crane’s-bill is used as a foodplant by The Annulet moth (Charissa obscurata), although not exclusively, as the UK Moths website says that the “larvae feed on Heather (Calluna) as well as a range of herbaceous plants“. (The moth is no longer found in Norfolk.)

The caterpillars of the Brown Argus butterfly are becoming more catholic in their tastes. The butterfly used to be restricted to chalk grassland where the caterpillars used Common Rock-rose as a foodplant. In the 1990s, however, the butterfly spread into grasslands away from chalk and started using crane’s-bills (note 6).

Dove’s-foot Crane’s-bill (Geranium molle) and Common Stork’s-bill (Erodium cicutarium) are now used as food plants. The Butterfly Conservation website refers to recent reports of egg-laying on Cut-leaved Crane’s-bill (G. dissectum), Meadow Crane’s-bill (G. pratense), and Hedgerow Crane’s-bill (G. pyrenaicum). Perhaps the Brown Argus has started to use Shining Crane’s-bill too, as suggested by the Wildflower Finder website.

Solitary bees frequently take nectar on species of Geranium in the garden and probably use Shining Crane’s-bill in the wild. I’ll have to keep a look-out. I’ve also seen Wood White butterflies nectaring on Herb Robert; why not Shining Cranesbill too?

Other Crane’s-bills Are Available

There are several other wild species of Geranium in flower at the moment. We have Herb Robert, Geranium robertianum and Dove’s-foot Crane’s-bill, Geranium molle in our garden and I found Cut-leaved Crane’s-bill, Geranium dissectum and Hedgerow Crane’s-bill, Geranium pyrenaicum on my recent bike ride.

I recommend the Wild Flower Society’s at-a-glance guide and, as ever, the Wildflower Finder website and Mike Crewe’s Flora of East Anglia website (which has separate pages for smaller and larger crane’s-bills).

I have already written about some other species of Geranium on this blog: Bloody Crane’s-bill, Geranium sanguineum and blue-flowered garden species such as Purple Crane’s-bill, Geranium x magnificum.

I’ve used the spelling ‘crane’s-bill’ but some writers use the spelling ‘cranesbill’, which is what I learnt from my first flower book, Keble Martin’s Concise British Flora in Colour.

Dove's-foot Cranesbill, Geranium molle

A carpet of Dove’s-foot Crane’s-bill, Geranium molle. New Buckenham, 8th May 2023.

Notes

Note 1 – Geranium lucidum is sometimes known as Shiny Crane’s-bill or Shiny Geranium in the United States.

Lucidum is a form of the Latin adjective lucidus, meaning “clear, bright, shining, full of light”.

The genus name is derived from the Greek géranos or geranós meaning crane, because of resemblance of the fruit capsule to a crane’s head and bill.

Note 2 – The family Geraniaceae is described on pages 364 – 376 of the “New Flora of the British Isles“ by Clive Stace (Fourth Edition, 2019). Stace describes 30 species of Geranium. The family also includes Stork’s-bills (genus Erodium) and a couple of naturalised species of Geranium (genus Pelargonium).

Note 3 – This is where they build Lotus cars.

Note 4 -“Distinguishing between native and alien occurrences is now impossible, so… all records are mapped as if native.”

Note 5 – Its American relative, Geranium carolinianum, apparently tastes bitter but is edible raw or cooked and has medicinal uses as an astringent, salve and styptic and gargle for sore throats.

Note 6 – See “The Butterflies of Britain & Ireland” by Jeremy Thomas and Richard Lewington (British Wildlife Publishing, 2014), page 127.

Wild Daffodil, Narcissus pseudonarcissus

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Wild Daffodils, Narcissus pseudonarcissus

Wild Daffodils, Narcissus pseudonarcissus, at Hethel church, Norfolk. 27th March 2023.

“I wandered lonely as a cloud…“

Well, actually, I didn’t wander. I was on a bike ride south-west of Norwich in late March. I had lunch at Great Moulton church and stopped off at Hethel church on my way home.

Wild Daffodils, Narcissus pseudonarcissus, were growing in both churchyards and they were at their very peak.

Wild Daffodils, Narcissus pseudonarcissus

Wild Daffodils, Narcissus pseudonarcissus, at Hethel church, Norfolk. 27th March 2023.

I love Daffodils. They’re one of the cheeriest and most definitive signs of spring, mainly flowering in mid to late March in Norfolk but in April further north.

Even the smallest garden usually has some daffodils. There are plenty to choose from: 36 species of Narcissus worldwide and more than 26,000 cultivated varieties.

Stace has just over six pages on Narcissus and lists 26 species and hybrids that grow in the wild in the British Isles, nearly all escapes from cultivation (note 1).

My least favourite are the double-flowered varieties (in Division 4), which I find rather ugly, although even these look pretty from a distance. But Wild Daffodils, Narcissus pseudonarcissus, are gorgeous and some of the very best Narcissus in form and colour. They are especially lovely in a wild setting but also make good garden flowers. Some have been planted in Norwich’s Heigham Park, a few minutes walk from where I live, in grass under trees by the park entrance.

The Wild Daffodil is a bit shorter than many of the garden cultivars (40 – 60cm tall) and has narrow, grey-green leaves. The flowers are two-tone, with pale yellow ‘petals’ (actually tepals  – undifferentiated petals and sepals) surrounding a darker yellow trumpet (the corona).

Narcissus pseudonarcissus is a perennial plant. Its leaves die back after flowering and spends the summer, autumn and early winter below ground, as a bulb. Over time, each bulb produces offsets (young bulbs), and clumps of daffodils form.

Our native daffodil

Narcissus pseudonarcissus is native to Britain and the Channel Isles but in Ireland it is a neophyte (a plant introduced after 1492). The 2020 Plant Atlas shows its current distribution. As a wild flower it is in decline but it has been planted in many places, so that “The extent of its native range in our area is probably now intractable given the extent of planting“. The 2020 Plant Atlas suggests there has been “some increase in alien occurrences in widely scattered parts of both Britain and Ireland whilst there may have been some recent losses of native populations, especially around the fringes of core areas in south-western England, the West Midlands and north-western England“.

Nowadays the main places to see Wild Daffodils in the wild are in the south-west (Devon, Somerset and Gloucestershire), Cumbria, the Black Mountains in Wales and the counties along the Welsh border.

The Woodland Trust website lists three of its woods with good populations: Letah Wood in Northumberland, Everdon Stubbs in Northamptonshire and Oldmoor Wood in Nottinghamshire.

The area around the Gloucestershire villages of Dymock, Preston, Kempley and Oxenhall is known as the “golden triangle” because of its Wild Daffodils and Daffodil Weekends and Daffodil Teas are held there in mid March. The area was served by “The Daffodil Line” (the Ledbury and Gloucester Railway) between 1885 and 1964 and in spring there were Sunday excursions to see Wild Daffodils. It is sad that the railway has gone but good to see that the bus service for the area is still known as the Daffodil Line.

Outside the British Isles, Narcissus pseudonarcissus is a native of Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland. It has been introduced into other countries in eastern Europe, North America and Australia.

“All the taverns may be seen decked out with this flower”

In 1581 Charles de l’Ecluse noted that the Wild Daffodil “grows in such profusion in the meadows close to London that… in Cheapside in March the country women offer the blossoms in great abundance for sale, and all the taverns may be seen decked out with this flower” (note 2). 

John Gerard (c1545 – 1612) thought that Wild Daffodils grew in “almost euery where through England” and Richard Mabey notes that the Wild Daffodil was “one of the most widespread, common (and commonly picked) spring flowers until the middle of the nineteenth century” when numbers declined in much of central and eastern England in particular (note 2).

Wild Daffodil’s natural habitat is in ash and oak woodlands, bracken stands on scrubby banks and in old pastures (especially damp meadows). Habitat loss was a major factor in the plant’s decline. Picking removes the flowers but wouldn’t otherwise harm the Wild Daffodils. Digging up bulbs is another matter.

Wild Daffodils, Narcissus pseudonarcissus

Wild Daffodils, Narcissus pseudonarcissus, at Great Moulton church. 27th March 2023.

The Wild Daffodils in Hethel and Great Moulton churchyards will have been planted.

The Flora of Norfolk (1999) says that Narcissus pseudonarcissus is “rare as a true native, but also occurring as an introduction especially in churchyards”. An earlier Flora (Petch and Swann 1968) says that “the truly wild daffodil is rare in Norfolk; the only recent records are from the Broads district… and at meadows at Hethel, where it has been known for many years”. A 1975 supplement to this flora tells us that Benjamin Stillingfleet recorded Wild Daffodils in flower at Stratton Strawless on April 1st 1785 (note 3).

Wild Daffodils have a number of English names, including Lent Lily, Easter Lily and Lenten Lily (because of the time of flowering), Daffys and Daffydowndilly.

The Welsh name is Cenhinen Bedr (Cennin Pedr), which translates as ‘Peter’s Leek’. A subspecies of the Wild Daffodil, Narcissus pseudonarcissus ssp. obvallaris, is known as the Tenby Daffodil. Its flowers are a uniform darker yellow and it is mainly confined to South-west Wales. Daffodils (especially the Tenby Daffodil) have been adopted as the national flower of Wales and are associated with St. David’s Day (1st March).

The scientific name, Narcissus, comes from the Greek myth about the young man who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water, becoming so obsessed that he fell in and drowned.

Admire but don’t eat…

Narcissus pseudonarcissus is a member of the family Amaryllidaceae. I’ve previously written about its relatives Three-cornered and Few-flowered Garlic (April 2021), Society Garlic (August 2015) and Babington’s Leek (January 2012), all of which are edible. But daffodils are poisonous – as is the related Snowdrop (which I wrote about in February 2012).

Daffodils contain the toxic alkaloids lycorine, galanthamine (also spelt galantamine), homolycorine, and tazettine and the toxic glycoside scillain (scillitoxin) (note 4).

Daffodil bulbs have sometimes been mistaken for onions. This usually results from someone not paying enough attention, for daffodil bulbs don’t smell of onions. (It’s important to use all your senses when identifying plants!)

Visitors to The Poison Garden in Alnwick shared their daffodil poisoning stories with John Robertson. One person poisoned herself and her dinner party guests; she didn’t bother to switch on her garage lights and accidentally grabbed some daffodil bulbs instead of onions. An au pair used daffodil bulbs by mistake when preparing a family meal. A couple were accidentally poisoned by an aged aunt – the woman suffered from nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea for two days after eating half a bulb but the man ate a whole bulb and was sick after ten minutes and recovered fully (note 5).

Not all poisoning is accidental: a dentistry student was convinced he was going to fail his exam, which would have forced him to end his studies. He deliberately ate a daffodil bulb before the exam and began vomiting after half an hour. He left the examination room and was allowed to resit the exam at a later date when he was better prepared (note 5).

Whether they are eaten raw or cooked, symptoms of Narcissus poisoning include dizziness, stomach pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea shortly after consumption. Trembling, convulsions and paralysis can occur in more severe cases (note 6).

The stems or leaves are sometimes mistaken for various types of Allium. Eating just a few daffodil leaves can cause vomiting, but complete recovery normally occurs within a few hours (note 6).

In 2015 Public Health England wrote to major supermarkets to warn that the flowers could be confused with onions or Chinese vegetables, and consumption of them was an “emerging risk”. It was suggested that daffodils should be kept separate from fruit and vegetable aisles. The warning was repeated this February by the Botanist James Wong.

Daffodil bulbs also contain oxalates (like Cuckoo Pint), which are like microscopic needles, causing severe burning and irritation of the lips, tongue, and throat when swallowed. To quote James Wong: “Daffodils are filled with microscopic crystals, so biting into one is like swallowing a box of tiny needles. Properly nasty”.

Picking daffodils regularly in large quantities can cause contact dermatitis from the sap. One Twitter user reported “I used to work on daffodil farms down in Cornwall harvesting both the flowers and the bulbs. I have scars on my hands from sap seeping around the rubber gloves that we had to wear“.

Dogs and cats that drink the water from a vase of daffodils can show mild symptoms of poisoning. Non-human deaths include cattle fed on daffodil bulbs (in the Netherlands in the Second World War when food was very scarce) and a tortoise that ate a few leaves, became constipated and listless and died after 11 days (note 6).

There is increasing interest in some of the compounds found in daffodils for their cytotoxic, antibacterial and antifungal properties and action as enzyme inhibitors (note 7). Galanthamine is an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor and shows promise in alleviating the early symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.

Notes

Note 1 – The genus Narcissus is described on pages 953 – 959 of the “New Flora of the British Isles“ by Clive Stace (Fourth Edition, 2019).

The genus Narcissus can be divided into 12 divisions depending on flower shape, colour and number of flowers on a stem. A thirteenth division is used for “Daffodils distinguished solely by botanical name”, which includes species of Narcissus such as the Wild Daffodil, Narcissus pseudonarcissus. The American Daffodil Society website has some good pictures of flowers in the various sections.

Note 2 – All this information comes from pages 425 – 433 of Richard Mabey’s “Flora Britannica” (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1996).

Charles de l’Ecluse was a Belgian Botanist, better known as Carolus Clusius, (1526 – 1609).

Note 3 – Gillian Beckett, Alec Bull and Robin Stevenson, “A Flora of Norfolk”.  Privately published, 1999. C.P. Petch and E.L. Swann, “Flora of Norfolk” Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society, 1968.
E.L. Swann, “Supplement to the Flora of Norfolk”, F. Crowe & Sons Ltd, Norwich, 1975.

Note 4 – From pages 20 – 21 of “Poisonous Plants and Fungi – An Illustrated Guide” by Marion Cooper and Anthony Johnson, HMSO, 1994 and Y. R. Boshra, J. R. Fahim, A. N. E. Hamed and S. Y. Desoukey (2022), “Phytochemical and biological attributes of Narcissus pseudonarcissus L. (Amaryllidaceae): A review“, South African Journal of Botany, Vol. 146, pages 437-458.

Note 5 – John Robertson (2010), “‘Is That Cat Dead?’ and other questions about poison plants”. Book Guild Publishing, Sussex, England.

Note 6 – Pages 20 – 21 of “Poisonous Plants and Fungi – An Illustrated Guide” by Marion Cooper and Anthony Johnson, HMSO, 1994.

Note 7 – Two recent examples are:

J. J. Nair and J. Van Staden (2021), “The plant family Amaryllidaceae as a source of cytotoxic homolycorine alkaloid principles“, South African Journal of Botany, Vol. 136, pages 157-174.

A. Lubbe, B. Pomahacová, Y.H. Choi and R. Verpoorte (2010), “Analysis of metabolic variation and galanthamine content in Narcissus bulbs by by 1H NMR“. Phytochem. Anal., Vol. 21: pages 66-72.