FOLIAGE. I 3 3 



suppress the young grass blades which try to grow up 

 underneath them. Daisies, as a matter of fact, tend to 

 spread over, and occupy exclusively any grass lawn which 

 is continually mown. Examining a daisy plant closely, 

 it will be seen that the older leaves are broadest near the 

 outside and narrow down towards their insertion. This 

 stalk-like part of the leaf is not green but whitish in 

 colour. Looking down on a daisy rosette it is easy to 

 see that the oldest leaves nearly touch one another, 

 and that there are some eight of these. The stalk 

 parts of these old leaves are covered by young leaves, 

 which very often just overlap the bare space on each 

 side, through which, if they were not present, some 

 intrusive grass blade might find its way. The very 

 youngest leaves of all are erect and curved round. 

 Hence the " spathulate " shape of the daisy leaf is 

 not a matter of chance ; but, as one can see from 

 the figure, is determined by the number of leaves, 

 namely eight, among which the light is shared, and 

 the necessity of catching all the light that falls on 

 them. 



In the common Gai^den Saxifrage, London Pride or 

 None-so-Pretty, a very similar arrangement is found, and 

 in this case also the leaves are eight in number. The 

 'WoodiToSiAsperula odorata), which has its leaves arranged 

 in little circles of eight along the stem, shows the object 

 of the " oblanceolate " leaf of botanists. They are widest 

 at some distance from the stem. For two-thirds of their 

 length they are very nearly triangles with an angle of 

 about 45°, so that the eight together form a complete 

 circle intercepting all the sunlight that falls on the 

 space. The circle below is slightly twisted, so that 

 its leaves come between those of the whorl above. 

 The garden Lupine again has very large leaves which 



