CO-OPERATION. 



169 



perfect little flowers, all of high organisation and 

 development (for they are in a very advanced stage, 

 and have had all their petals fused together into 

 gamopetalous corollas), are thus collected together. 

 Outside them are the " ray " florets, strap-shaped, 

 and often, as in the Asters and 

 Chrysanthemums, attractively 

 and even gorgeously coloured ; 

 and sometimes, as in the Sun- 

 flower and Dahlias, growing 

 to a great size. But they are 

 all barren ! Frequently they 

 retain their sexual organs, but 

 they are always aborted. In 

 fact, these ray -florets live for 

 the benefit, not of themselves, 

 but of their more perfectly form- 

 ed brethren. And in such floral 

 colonies as our common Daisy 

 the pink -tipped white "rays" 

 not only attract flying insects 



• .1 • , 11 n « Fig. 66. — Ox-eye Daisy. 



to the mmute yellow florets 

 which compose the disk, but bend over and cover 

 them up like nurses at night ; as if for fear they 

 should suffer frost, or be spoiled by rain or dew — 

 and then the country children say the " Daisy has 

 gone to sleep " ! 



The Capittihun of one of these plants is analogous 

 to a beehive or ant-colony among insects ; the latter 



