DISSECTING A DAISY 



331 



We have seen that the daisy has not bright 

 color in any conspicuous degree, nor has it a 

 noticeable size. But besides these disadvantages, 

 it also lacks the pleasant property of perfume. 

 Some of our bright-hued flowers, like the rose 

 and the carnation, add this further beauty to 

 their large dimensions and delicate tints ; others, 

 a little less fortunate, like the primrose, the wall- 

 flower, the heliotrope, the violet, and the mead- 

 ow-sweet, make up by their exquisite scent for 

 the comparative sobriety of their petals. Many 

 of those blossoms which can boast scarcely any 

 attractions of form or pigment yet gratify us by 

 their delicious fragrance; such are mignonette, 

 lavender, sweet-brier, and rosemary. But the 

 little daisy cannot lay claim to this source of 

 pleasure ; it cannot even compete with thyme, 

 marjoram, or hawthorn, far less with the lilac, 

 the orange, or the flowering almond. 



Furthermore, the daisy does not possess that 

 intellectual interest which many blossoms arouse 

 by their quaintness or unusual form. There is a 

 certain uncanny look about a listera, a snap- 

 dragon, or a bee-orchis, which is sure to fix our at- 

 tention upon it for a moment. Monk's-hood, with 

 its queer cowl and upright honey-glands ; cock's- 

 comb, with its intricate mass of crimson fluff; 

 begonia, with its lop-sided leaf and quadrangular 

 blossom ; calceolaria, with its padded and in- 

 flated slipper ; the dodder twining thread-like its 

 long pink filaments ; the teazle, imbedded in its 

 prickly mail ; the cactus, seeming to spring from 

 the middle of a leaf — all these have an oddity 

 and idiosyncrasy which insures at least a curious 

 glance. But the daisy is just a simple, symmet- 

 rical, yellow-centred flower — or at least (to save 

 my credit with the botanical reader) it looks so 

 to a cursory inquirer. It has a shape with which 

 we are perfectly familiar through a thousand ex- 

 amples, from sunflowers to camomile ; and there 

 is nothing about it in any way to draw toward it 

 the eye of a careless wayfarer. 



On the other hand, the daisy is free from some 

 disagreeable qualities which spoil the beauty of 

 certain other plants. It has not the objection- 

 able odor of its sister composites, such as mil- 

 foil, tansy, and corn-marigold. If it cannot com- 

 pete with the honeysuckle or the lily-of-the-valley, 

 it does not disgust us like the leek, the dragon 

 arum, and the strong - smelling night - plants. 

 Again, though the colors of the daisy are not 

 very brilliant, at any rate it is a recognizable 

 flower in the popular sense, not an insignificant 

 botanical inflorescence like that of a grass, an 

 oak, or a plantain. It is quite prominent enough 



to catch the eyes of children, who pass over 

 dock, and groundsel, and galeum ; indeed, on a 

 level plot of grass it is sure to gain a certain 

 amount of notice from every one in contrast with 

 the green area by which it is surrounded. It was 

 the first flower I could see just now, when I 

 stretched my hand for a text to philosophize 

 upon, though, when I look down closer in the 

 grass, I see half a dozen little blossoms of tinier 

 dimensions which escaped my notice beside the 

 larger disk of the daisy. 



All this while, however, the daisy has been 

 lying passive in my hand, under sentence of vivi- 

 section, while I have been quietly settling in my 

 own mind what it is not. It is time for me now 

 to change my method of inquiry, and to discover 

 what it is. 



First of all, as I take it up and look at it 

 closely, I see that it is a little, white-fringed 

 flower, with a yellow centre. Though not very 

 brilliant, it has quite color enough to be pretty. 

 Its white is pure and lucid ; its yellow is clear 

 and soft ; while its outer edge is tipped with a 

 dainty pink, that rivals the inner surface of a 

 shell. When it was half open, this pink edge 

 was its most conspicuous part ; and, as I turn to 

 look again, I see that my five-year-old psycho- 

 logical subjects are stringing a number of its fel- 

 lows in their pinky stage into a rosy-colored 

 daisy-chain. Clearly, on the score of color alone, 

 our daisy might fairly lay claim to a certain 

 share of simple beauty. I doubt whether my 

 little friends here care for much else in its com- 

 position besides this commonest and earliest ele- 

 ment of aasthetic pleasure. 



I look again, and I see that beyond its delicate 

 tint it has the charm of symmetrical form. Its 

 outer rays are disposed in regular order, radiat- 

 ing from the centre of the head ; while its inner 

 orb is a perfect circle of soft, yellow bloom. In 

 recognizing this source of pleasure, we pass from 

 the purely sensuous factor of color to the intel- 

 lectual one of symmetry. The mind is agreeably 

 occupied in noticing the circular shape, the or- 

 derly repetition of form, and the even arrange- 

 ment both of parts and hues. Next to the pri- 

 mordial pleasure of brilliant optical stimulation, 

 this is perhaps the earliest in historical develop- 

 ment of all aesthetic feelings ; and, unlike the 

 other, it is of purely human origin. Birds and 

 mammals — perhaps even reptiles — are apparently 

 gratified by pure color ; but only man is capable 

 of taking pleasure in the intellectual recognition 

 of symmetrically-repeated forms. We saw, in 

 the case of the cocoanut which we carved to- 



