You may remember from your biology class that “Kickass Petals Can Obfuscate Folks’ Gardening Stratifications.”

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The taxonomy of the flowers in question starts out pretty simply. They are obviously Plants, so they go in that Kingdom. Their Phylum was once called Magnoliophyta, after the French botanist Magnol, but today we call them Angiosperms. Their Class is based on the fact that they produce seeds, so they are in Liliopsida. They all grow kinda like Asparagus do, with tall stems that shoot up out of the ground each spring, so they are in Order Asparagales. And they are in the same Family as their cousin the Amaryllis – symbolic of Christianity’s second-most-important holy day ­– with three strap-shaped leaves down near the base of the plant, and a tall stem that presents the flowers, so they are in the Family Amaryllidaceae.

But when we get down to Genus, we need to look to ancient Greece. Ovid tells us that there was once a young hunter named Narcissus, who was so handsome that a wood nymph named Echo tried to entice him by secretly following after him and repeating everything he said. When she finally revealed herself, he rejected her, and she sadly hid herself away, reduced to nothing more than a repetitive sound. This enraged the goddess of revenge, Nemesis, and she lured the young hunter to a clear pool. When he looked in and saw his reflection, he was so captivated by his own beauty that he was immobilized, and his self-passion eventually transformed him into a gold and white flower.

And so, if you visit a garden this weekend, you may see such a flower and say, “My what a beautiful Narcissus!” You will be technically accurate, as all the flowers in question are in the Genus Narcissus.

But they aren’t very commonly called that. There are hundreds of Species of Narcissi, and whether they are white, yellow, or some combination thereof, and shot through with orange, pink or even lime green, almost everybody just calls them all Daffodils. Sometimes they get an extra adjective, such as ‘Poets Daffodil.’ And two are so unique they’ve earned a name of their own; ‘Jonquils’ have clusters of flowers instead of singles, and ‘Paperwhites’ have thin flowers like papyrus. But you can still call them all Daffodils, and all Daffodils are technically some kind of Narcissus.

Some botanists dissent and suggest that ‘Narcissus’ is actually a reference to the Greek word, ‘Narkao’ which means “I grow numb” and from which we get ‘Narcotic.’ And the plants certainly do have a toxin strong enough keep the deer from eating them. But for most folks, when you hear, ‘Narcissus,’ you can’t help but think about a hunky hunter.

All of which results in this weekend’s irony: the single-most important Christian holy day, which is a testament to self-sacrifice, is marked by a profusion of color that screams self-involvement.

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OK kids, that’s it for Bio for this week! Grab your stuff on the way out, enjoy your weekend. Have a colorful Easter.