Spring is in full bloom, with the yellow trumpets blanketing the green at a Taranaki primary school having heralded the change in season for a century.
"They were planted in around about 1920. We've been told that they were planted by returning soldiers as a remembrance to the soldiers who returned from war," Egmont Village School deputy principal Tracey Priest told Seven Sharp.
While the piece of history can't be confirmed, the story of the green-fingered soldiers has been handed down through the generations.
"When I talk to anybody and they ask where I work and I say Egmont Village School, they all say, 'Oh, you're the daffodil school'. It's what we're known for around the district," Priest said.
"They're an absolute ray of sunshine at the front of our school."
Every year, students pick and sell the blooms - a tradition almost as old as the plot itself.
The flowers are sold in bunches of 10 at the school gate, with the money raised going towards a senior class camp in Wellington every two years.
But on Daffodil Day, all proceeds go to the Cancer Society, with students having raised $550 for the charity this year.
In a somewhat ironic twist, the crop was first planted following the 1918-19 flu epidemic which killed 9000 New Zealanders - 42 of them in what was then known as Egmont County.
"It's quite significant that we're now going through another pandemic," she said.
It's also the first time ever that many of the blooms have to remain unpicked.
"It makes you really think that they were going through something really similar to what we're going through today."
The children of essential workers will be joined by Egmont Village School's remaining students from Thursday to gather the remainder of the yellow bunches.
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