Just off Powdermill Lane in an area of Pond Wood that would have been part of the garden of one of the pre-reservoir houses in Brede High Woods is a fine group of double daffodils.
This is a very old variety, thought to be a form of the wild daffodil (Narcissus pseudonarcissus) dating from at least the early 17th century and variously known as Narcissus telamonius plenus and Narcissus Van Sion.
Within this group, which must have been here since at least the late 1920s, there was one remarkable green variant.
This phenomenon, which I am not sure is consistent in the plant year on year, is not unknown with this particular daffodil cultivar. A. M. Kirby in his 1907 book Daffodils, Narcissi and How to Grow Them wrote "Another vagary of the Double Van Sion is its tendency to produce flowers tinged with green and sometimes almost all green."
