52 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS 



hectic fevers caused by drinking- cold water when overheated. In 

 Germany it was eaten with meat as a potherb. Cattle, horses, and 

 sheep do not touch it. 



Chaucer eulogized it in his day: 



In special one called Se of the Dale, 



The Daisie, a floure white and rede, 



And in French called La bel Margarete, 



O commendable floure above all flouris in the meede, 



Than love I most those flouris white and rede, 



Such that men callen Daisies in our Town. 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



152. Bellis perennis, L. No aerial stem, but prostrate rhizome, 

 leaves radical, obovate, crenate, dentate, flowerheads on scapes, white 

 ray florets, yellow disk florets. Some flowers have all ligulate florets, 

 or all tubular florets, bracts in one row. 



Milfoil (Achillea Millefolium, L.) 



This common Composite is found throughout the North Temperate 

 and Arctic Zones in Arctic Europe, Temperate and cold North 

 Asia, the Himalayas, and N. America, but is not found in any early 

 deposits. It is found in all parts of Great Britain, and up to about 

 4000 ft. in the Highlands. 



Yarrow or Milfoil is common in all sorts of habitats up and down 

 the country. It is to be found in fields and meadows, especially dry 

 pastures, along the roadside and on waste ground, preferring sandy 

 soil, and growing on the margins of arable land, allotments, and 

 gardens, in which last it is encouraged for its fever-curing properties. 



The glistening leaves of the Milfoil with its thousands of delicate 

 leaflets bathed in silvery dew on a frosty morning are a familiar sight 

 not soon forgotten. The stems are erect, rigid, striate, and prostrate 

 below, but ascend at the tip, and are angular. The leaves have the 

 lobes on each side of the stalk divided again, slightly hairy, alternate, 

 linear, narrowly elliptical, the radical leaves stalked, the segments very 

 slender and narrow. The bottom of the stem is covered with a dense 

 cobweb-like down. 



The flowers are numerous, and borne in close terminal corymbs in 

 which the flower-stalks are shortened and form a flat-topped flower- 

 head. The ray florets are large in proportion, equalling half the whorl 

 of leaf-like organs. The leaf-like organs are downy with a brownish 

 ^fcargin blunt and hollow. The disk florets are funnel-shaped with a 



