A BOTANICAL DESCRIPTION. 145 



elongate the said ovoid receptacle as if it were a ball of wax, 

 it would be changed into a sheath-like inflorescence ; all our 

 smaller florets, whose union composes what is improperly 

 called the flower of the daisy, would be ranged around an 

 elongated, instead of being placed upon a flattened axis. 

 This axis characterises all the Synantheracese of the family 

 of the Composites (a sub-order) ; sometimes naked, sometimes 

 garnished with varied hairs, either shrunken or persistent, it 

 has furnished several characters useful in the classification of 

 genera and species. But possessed with a mania for com- 

 plicating everything, botanists designate it indifferently re- 

 ceptacle, phoranthe, dinanthe, etc. Why not employ one and 

 the same word to distinguish one and the same thing ? Why 

 not have preserved the name axis, and have attached to it 

 such qualifying terms as might be necessary to indicate simple 

 differences of forms ? 



The ancients looked upon nature, I cannot sufficiently 

 insist upon this theme, with quite other eyes than we do. 

 The study and description of characters, so indispensable to 

 our classifications and nomenclatures, appeared to them a 

 useless labour ; they had not even an idea of its value. But 

 it was of signal importance to them to investigate the virtues 

 and properties of plants, so far as they might be rendered avail- 

 able for the preservation of health and the cure of disease. 



Our daisy is common in Greece. Theophrastus, therefore, 

 ought to have known it, though he does not refer to it. It is 



common also in the plains of Italy. Pliny was the first to 



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