No other flower makes me as happy as a daffodil does – unless it’s an escaped daffodil. This time of year, thousands of them are held prisoner in fields across Cornwall, to be plucked by Bulgarian pickers before they’ve had a chance to bloom. But I spot some of them on the run from the fields – brave souls have fled onto Cornish hedges and grassy verges on the other side of the fields. They’ve escaped!

It’s wrong that we think of trees and flowers (unless they’re triffids) as stationary beings. Though they may take longer than humans and animals to travel (a forest can take thousands of years to move naturally), vegetation has its own methods and reasons for moving. Seed dispersal is the main obvious example and can be achieved via gravity, wind, force, water and animals (as well as birds and insects). For the best chance of survival, it’s important that seeds travel so they can move away from the parent plant and spread their wings, or petals, in the case of daffodils (their distinctive trumpet, called a corona is surrounded by six petals). In an over-crowded field, competition for nutrients is rife and there’s a risk of disease or natural disaster from all being in the same place.

I applaud the migrating daffs as they go hopping over walls, blowing their trumpets as they search for pastures new.

Previously on Barnflakes
Daffodil fields forever