HOURS WITH NATURE. 



Yet like a star, with glittering crest, 

 Self-poised in air thou seem'st to rest ; 

 May peace come never to his nest, 

 Who shall reprove thee ! 



Centuries before Wordsworth, Chaucer had watched 

 the Daisy, passing whole days leaning on his elbow and 

 his side, and singing in the following strain : 



" For nothing ellis, so I shall not lie, 

 But for to lokin upon the Daisie, 

 The emprise and flower of flowers all." 



The same author gives us the origin of the name 



" One called eye of the daie 



The daisie, a floware white and rede, 



And in PYench called La bel Margarete." 



The Daisy is not the single and ^simple flower that 

 it looks, but a cluster of little flowers or (florets) as they 

 ar botanically called, arranged upon a common recept- 

 ac and held together and surrounded by a cup-shaped 

 green case. This green cup or case takes the place of 

 a calyx or outer envelope of a flower and is formed of a 

 number of little bracts or leaves that grow round the 

 base of the small flowers. The outer florets are white 

 and have strap-shaped corollas : the central florets are 

 delicate yellow and have tubular corollas. The former 

 have no stamens, but only a style with two stigmas, where- 

 as the latter are quite perfect in that they have both sta- 

 mens and pistils. The common Indian flowers ^t?l 

 (Tagetes patula) and sanftw (Chrysanthemum) are also 

 compound flowers like the Daisy, and belong to the 

 same Natural order. Although considered indigenous to 

 the country, Tagetes (^ft?l) is in reality a foreign plantj 



