Daisies and Thistles 179 
shed their pollen before the stigmas expand, the 
tube is filled with pollen. Then the style begins to 
lengthen, and the unripe stigmas are pushed like 
a brush up the tube, and the pollen is piled up at 
the mouth of the flower, and insects crawling over 
in quest of honey get well dusted with it. 
At length the pollen has all been brushed out, 
and the stigma having passed the summit its two 
arms separate, so that these catch against insects 
that have visited an earler flower and got dusted 
with its pollen. Some of this is sure to be attached 
to the stigmas, and the seed-eggs thus cross-fertilised. 
Fertilisation is effected chiefly by butterflies, which 
may be found swarming upon it. I have seen plants 
growing on the face of Cornish cliffs with scores 
of Painted Ladies, Peacocks, and Red Admirals, 
the former predominating, crowded upon the flower- 
heads and drinking the nectar. Bees and flies are also 
included among its visitors. Self-fertilisation some- 
times takes place owing to 
a few pollen-grains adher- a 
ing to the hairs of the <—S=V“7 
stigma and getting upon © 
the sensitive surface. 
Now let us turn to the portion of Daisy- 
familiar and ever charming iosed pes ps 
Daisy (Bellis perennis), florets 
that whitens our lawns and 
pastures from New Year to Christmas. Surely no 
Kuropean plant beside the grasses is so common. 
The flower-head—what we mean when we speak of 
the Daisy—is a more compact, more finished-looking 
composite than Hemp Agrimony. More than two 
