COMPOSITE. 105 



Perennial. Stem extremely short, with the leaves in a rosette, 

 obovatc-spathulate. Scapes leafless. Phyllaries in 1 row, linear- 

 strapshaped, obtuse. 



Pastures and meadows. Very common, and universally dis- 

 tributed. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Spring to Autumn. 



Eootstock brownish, branched, terminating in short green stems 

 with the leaves usually so approximate as to be in radical rosettes ; 

 stems rarely more elongated, and with the leaves in the rosette lax 

 below. Leaves rather suddenly contracted into a short winged 

 petiole, bluntly serrate or crenate-serrate, sub-3-nerved or 1-nerved. 

 Scapes 2 to 8 inches high. Pericline herbaceous. Plorets of the disk 

 short, yellow; those of the ray spreading, much longer than the 

 phyllaries, white, often winged with red externally or at the tips, 

 xlchenes obovate, compressed, slightly pubescent, whitish. Plant 

 bright-green, sparingly hairy. 



The Daisy. 



This is the only British species of this genus, whose very name is associated with 

 perpetual beauty. According to Dr. Prior, it is in old English dceges-eage, eye of day, 

 from its opening and closing its flower with the daylight, — a name that seems to have 

 delighted Chaucer, who makes long and repeated allusions to it. Skinner, nevertheless, 

 derives it from dais, a canopy ; and Gavin Douglas seems to have understood it in this 

 sense of a small canopy in the line — 



" The daisie did unbraid her crownal small." 



Dr. Prior says : " Had we not the Anglo-Saxon dseges-eage, we could hardly 

 refuse to admit that this last is a far more obvious and probable explanation of the 

 word than the pretty poetical thought conveyed in day's eye. Chaucer describes him- 

 self as passing whole days, leaning on his elbow and his side, 



" For nothing ellis, and I shall not lie, 

 But for to lokin upon the daisie. 

 The emprise and flowre of flowres all." 



In another place he gives us the origin of the name : — 



" One called eye of the daie, 

 The daisie, a flowre white and rede, 

 And in French called La bel Margarete." 



It has been said that his frequent praises of the Daisy were intended as poetical tributes 

 to Margaret, Countess of Pembroke ; but of this we have no certain proof. The device 

 of Margaret of Angouleme, " La Marguerite des Marguerites," the pearl of pearls, as 

 her brother Francis I. fondly called her, was not, as is often said, the Daisy, but the 

 Marigold, which is likewise called " Marguerite " in French. The device of Margaret 

 of Anjou, the unfortunate queen of Henry VI., was the Daisy. The French name 

 Marguerite has reference to the resemblance of its pearly bud to the rarer pearls of the 

 ocean. Its Scotch name is gowan, and in Yorkshire it is recognized as peculiarly the 

 VOL. V. P 



