Daffodils

19 February 2014

Back garden

Our first daffodil is coming into flower, about ten days after our first snowdrops. These miniatures grow by the bird feeders.

I draw a larger daffodil from a bunch we bought at the florist's.

The six 'petals' of a daffodil are botanically three petals and three sepals. They look identical to me but it's plain to see that the petals are enclosed by the sepals. In a simple flower, like the totally unrelated buttercup, the sepals are obvious as they're green and hairy and quite unlike the glossy yellow petals.

The stem or flower stalk is botanically a pedicel. This supports the receptacle containing the ovaries which is sheathed by a spathe; a large bract. A bract is a modified leaf or scale.

Petals and sepals are fused into a perianth tube. The perianth is the outer part of the flower, usually consisting of the sepals which form a calyx. Together the petals which consitute a corolla, but the daffodil combines calyx and corolla into its corolla tube.

The inner coralla tube forms the centre of the flower

Colour coming back

The first fly of the year! Sitting on my studio window.

A robin bathes at the shallow end of the pond, a favourite spot with the blackbird and sparrows who I also spotted bathing there today.

Colour is coming back into the landscape; blue sky, green fields and sun over Emley (the village where this sketchbook was made!).