5 6 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS 



The Ox-eye Daisy is a familiar sight in spring and summer in 

 every meadow and field, and is also common on railway banks, 

 contributing to make them unusually gay at those seasons with a 

 wealth of white and golden bloom. It is to be found on hills, and 

 in valleys, by the wayside, and even amidst the corn, being every- 

 where a favourite, common though it is. Every meadow or railway 

 bank is covered with extensive patches of the Marguerite in summer, 

 and when in flower it is a beautiful sight. 



OX-EYE DAISY (Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum, L.) 



The Ox-eye Daisy has the rosette habit more or less. The plant 

 is either devoid of hairs or sparingly hairy. The stem is erect, simple 

 or branched, furrowed. The leaves are dark-green, bluntly cut or 

 divided. The lower leaves are inversely egg-shaped, spoon-shaped, 

 stalked, with the stalk winged, auriclecl; the upper are oblong, blunt, 

 cut, stalkless, deeply divided nearly to the base at the base, half 

 clasping. 



The flowerheads are borne on slender stalks, broad (2 in.), solitary, 

 terminal. The disk florets are yellow, the ray florets white. The 

 phyllaries are blunt, lance-shaped, with a narrow, dark-purple, mem- 

 branous border. The ligules are 6-notched at the tip. The fruits are 

 all rounded, without a border, with equal ribs, those of the ray florets 

 having a small crown. 



