Narcissus tazetta

Last year on this day the Beast from the East had just arrived in Peterborough. This year we're basking in temperatures of 18C. These extreme conditions are probably both symptoms of the Climate Emergency that our politicians seem to care so little about, probably because most of them have no grasp of the implications. 

I drove over to Lenton to have lunch with a fellow botanist, recently appointed joint BSBI Recorder for Northamptonshire, and to help her get to grips with the  computer program currently used for plant recording. We'd finished by 3 p.m., so went for a short walk round the nearby village of Irnham, which has a very pretty churchyard. These sweetly scented Narcissus tazetta were among the flowers we spotted.

Cultivars of this species include 'Paperwhite', 'Grand Soleil d'Or' and 'Ziva', which are popularly used for forcing indoors, but this one appears to be close to the wild type, which is native in Mediterranean countries from Portugal to Turkey and is also widely naturalised elsewhere. It must be enjoying the current warm temperatures!