66 TALKS AFIELD. 



decorate our glades and meadows. The 

 wild asters, plants peculiarly American, are 

 the popular daisies west of New England, 

 where the intruding white-weed or ox-eye 

 daisy has not yet overrun the meadows. 

 The American autumn blossoms with asters 

 and golden-rods, the twin emblems of the 

 season's maturity and harv^est. Poets have 

 always loved the daisies : — 



*' The daisy scattered on each mead and downe, 

 A golden tuft within a silver crown ; 

 Faire fell that daintj' flower! and ma}' there be 

 No shepherd graced that doth not honor thee ! " 



Shakespeare wrote of '' daisies pied and vio- 

 lets blue." The etymology of the word sug- 

 gests a poem : it is derived from the old 

 Saxon day^s eye. The sunflowers are the 

 most conspicuous members of the family. 

 Nearly all the species are North American. 

 Forty species are described from this conti- 

 nent, north of Mexico, and of these twenty 

 occur in the Northern States east of the 

 Mississippi. They are miniatures in size of 

 heads as compared with the great sunflowers 

 of the garden. All the species are yellow- 

 rayed, with the exception of one or two 

 which are entirely rayless. The common 

 garden sunflower was introduced long ago 



