Herbariuma Backpackers project
All plants

Angel's tears

Narcissus triandrus

Family · Amaryllidaceae · Poisonous

ToxicProtected

Read this before the sheet

This plant, or one that resembles it, is dangerous. Identifying is not authorising: no app has the authority to tell you that you may eat or touch a plant.

Angel's tears (Narcissus triandrus)Angel's tears (Narcissus triandrus)
flickr-user spacepleb (Dave Gough), CC BY 2.0 · Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz, CC BY-SA 4.0

The most elegant wild daffodil in the Peninsula, its white or cream flowers always facing down, the petals swept back like a cyclamen's. It is an Iberian endemic.

Where it grows

Scrubland · Uplands · Pine woods · Oak woods

Also known as

triandrus daffodil

In flower

How to tell it

One to six hanging flowers on a slender stalk, white, cream or pale yellow. The six outer segments sweep clearly backwards, which no other Iberian daffodil does so markedly. A short cup-shaped central corona. Narrow, nearly cylindrical leaves rising from the bulb.

What it is confused with

No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.

What it is for

None. Like all daffodils, the bulb contains lycorine and related alkaloids: it causes violent vomiting, cramps and arrhythmia, and is among the commonest poisonings through confusion with onions in gardens. It is protected and endemic, which is reason enough not to touch it.

The law says

An Iberian endemic protected under the Habitats Directive. Do not pick the flower or dig up the bulb.

Sources