Spring is coming in fits and starts, but has been spurred on over the past few days with some glorious warm weather. The bright yellow coltsfoot bloom that looks like a dandelion is underway, and is all the more striking as it flowers before its leaves appear, which may be how it got its other name "son-before-father."
Blossoms of early-flowering cherries are bursting out in gardens, parks and streets, along with hawthorn bushes breaking out new green leaves. Blackthorn bushes are showered in snowy white blossom in the South, although ancient wisdom warns of the "blackthorn winter", when blackthorn blossom comes out in a warm mid-March only to be dashed by a cold, harsh spell later.
Daffodils were a touch late this year, perhaps held back by the cold weather earlier this month. New research at Oxford University has revealed that the daffodil flower isn't quite what it appears. The magnificent trumpet that thrusts out of the flower and announces the arrival of spring is a freak of nature, an elongated portion of the flower called the hypanthium. Normally this is a small cup-shaped structure that remains hidden deep inside the flower and holds the petals, sepals, stamens and carpe. It's only revealed in certain flowers after pollination – when you eat an apple, for instance, you are biting into a thick, fleshy hypanthium. But in the daffodil, the hypanthium enlongates into the trumpet, a unique flower organ.