Why are daffodils yellow?

Answer 1

The color of the daffodil is linked to the pollinators it attracts. In order to produce the next generation, flowers have a lot of tricks to draw in insects to move the pollen to the stamen. Competition is fierce for those critters! The information for what color is best for the daffodil after thousands of years of hit-or-miss genetics, is locked within the gene. Hybridizers have come up with new and bolder colors, and in doing so may lose the entire purpose of the color which is to attract pollinators.
The color of the daffodil is linked to the pollinators it attracts. In order to produce the next generation, flowers have a lot of tricks to draw in insects to move the pollen to the stamen. Competition is fierce for those critters! The information for what color is best for the daffodil after thousands of years of hit-or-miss genetics, is locked within the gene. Hybridizers have come up with new and bolder colors, and in doing so may lose the entire purpose of the color which is to attract pollinators.

Answer 2

The Online Etymology Dictionary indicates that we don't know the actual origin of the word along with a meaning, but we do know that it is from Middle English affodill, which is from the Medieval Latin Affodillus, and the Latin asphodilus, and the Greek asphodelos. The 'd' in the beginning might come from the Dutch 'de affodil', and this makes sense since The Netherlands is the source of many kinds of bulb. See link for more. The Online Etymology Dictionary also claims that the earliest documented use of the word goes back to the 1590's.

You can learn more by looking up the flower called asphodel.

Answer 3

Dandelions have yellow petals but are asexual plants; they use wind dispersal in order to spread their seeds away from the parent plant.

They have clearly been sexual plants at a point in their history, but have changed to become asexual and continue to pass on the genes coding for their colourful characteristics, even though they are not necessary for the plant's survival/reproductive nature.

Answer 4

Daffodils bloom because they are of the Infradivision Angiospermae which holds all the flowering plants. The flower is a sexual reproductive organ that increases the genetic variability within the species. However the daffodil is very sucessful as an asexual plant (reproducing primarily by bulbets from the mother bulb). So that makes the daffodil flower an ornamental and one that brings smiles after a long, gray winter.

Note: should you deadhead a daffodil? YES! Personally I pick all my daffodil flowers as soon as they bloom. That way the food the leaves make gets stored in the bulb for next year's flowers. And I like to have daffodil blooms in every room of my house.

Answer 5

A daffodil blooms to create seeds to make more daffodils.