180 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
hundred tubular, bright yellow florets are closely 
packed together on a conical receptacle, and all 
these contain both stamens and pistils as in Hemp 
Agrimony, but the anther cells have got little tails, 
and the stigma arms are short and thick, covered 
with fleshy points. The Daisy shows a great advance 
in the co-operative idea, in the distinction made 
between the outer row of florets and all the others. 
This outer row, consisting of about fifty florets, 
following the example of Guelder Rose, has been 
adapted for advertising 
purposes: the corolla has 
been greatly lengthened, 
and the yellow turned to 
white, then it has been 
split down on one side 
and the tube flattened out 
to form a_ strap - shaped 
“petal” to the composite 
flower, but its real charac- 
ter 1s revealed by the teeth left at the end of the strap 
to indicate the petals of which the tubular corolla was 
originally made up. It is really remarkable how, in 
innumerable instances where the character of a part 
has been completely changed, Nature appears to have 
left indications such as these teeth to guide us to 
a true understanding of the changed organ, yet until 
recently we have persisted in regarding such marks 
as meaningless ornament. | 
In some species there are three of these tecth (in 
the Daisy two only,in the Dandelion the full five) 
at the tip of the ray, with a couple of little petals or 
long teeth where the ray joins the corolla-tube; in 
Ray-floret of Daisy 
