Claudia in Cherryville, North Carolina, grew up hearing her grandmother call those spring-yellow flowers jonquils, not daffodils. In botanical terms, daffodil is the broader common name for flowers in the genus Narcissus, while a jonquil is one...
Martha muses about the secret lives of flowers in this week’s podcast. She’s been pondering the lexical legacy of Carolus Linnaeus, the great Swedish botanist who nearly 300 years ago was criticized for his fascination with what was a new discovery...