Narcissus (plant)
genus of plants in family Amaryllidaceae
Narcissus is a genus of predominantly spring flowering perennial plants of the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae. Various common names including daffodil, narcissus (plural narcissi), and jonquil, are used to describe some or all members of the genus.
Narcissus has conspicuous flowers with six petal-like tepals surmounted by a cup- or trumpet-shaped corona. The flowers are generally white and yellow (also orange or pink in garden varieties), with either uniform or contrasting coloured tepals and corona.
Narcissi were well known in ancient civilisation, both medicinally and botanically, but were formally described by Linnaeus in his Species Plantarum (1753). The genus is generally considered to have about ten sections with approximately 70–80 species; the Plants of the World Online database currently accepts 76 species and 93 named hybrids. The number of species has varied, depending on how they are classified, due to similarity between species and hybridisation.
The genus arose some time in the Late Oligocene to Early Miocene epochs, in the Iberian Peninsula and adjacent areas of southwest Europe. The exact origin of the name Narcissus is unknown, but it is often linked to a Greek word (ancient Greek ναρκῶ narkō, "to make numb") and the myth of the youth of that name who fell in love with his own reflection. The English word "daffodil" appears to be derived from "asphodel", with which it was commonly compared.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Narcissus (plant)” is genus of plants in family Amaryllidaceae. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Narcissus, plant and genus, not as a finished interpretation.
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The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q29465. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1753.
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This entry incorporates text from “Narcissus (plant)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.