DAISY 



49 



Daisy (Bellis perennis, L.) 



Found in the North Temperate Zone in Europe generally at the 

 present time, there is nothing to indicate that the Daisy is an ancient 

 plant in Great Britain. The Daisy is ubiquitous, growing in every 

 part of Great Britain, and ascending to 3000 ft. in the Highlands. 



So common is the Daisy that its occurrence is scarcely noted, and 

 if it were not that it is absent from wooded districts one might consider 

 it as the commonest of British plants, except the Annual Meadow 

 Grass, but as the latter is driven from arable soil probably the two are 

 about on a level in 

 this respect. Fields, 

 highways, hills, as 

 well as dales, are 

 everywhere studded 

 with Daisies in the 

 spring and summer 

 months. 



The habit of the 

 Daisy is the rosette 

 habit. The plant may 

 be quite hairless or 

 hairy, according to 

 situation. The root- 

 stock is stout, with 

 numerous stout fibres, 

 and prostrate. The 

 aerial stem is a scape. 



The leaves are all radical, as in true rosette plants, and lie on the 

 ground, or the inner ones may be erect. They are stalked, inversely 

 egg-shaped to spoon-shaped, fleshy, blunt or rounded at the tip, which 

 is scalloped, toothed, with a broad midrib, dark green and frequently 

 glossy. 



The flowerheads are borne on simple, single scapes, with a yellow 

 disk and a white or pink ray. The florets are occasionally all ligulate, 

 or rarely all tubular. The ray florets are numerous in one series, 

 ligulate. The arms of the style are linear, blunt, with a thick border. 

 The disk florets are tubular, 4-5 toothed, the anther cells simple, the 

 arms of the style short, thick, with papillose cones at the tip. The 

 involucre or whorl of bracts is bell-shaped, the bracts in 1-2 series, 



DAISY (Bellis perennis, L.) 



