COMPOSITE FAMILY 



The Ox-Eye Daisy came to us from Europe. One 

 of its great centres of distribution was the battle- J 

 field of Saratoga and the route of Burgoyne's army,^ 

 because the horses were fed upon fodder that came 

 from central Germany, and this weed, so tradition 

 says, was in the hay and its seeds sprang up in the track 

 of the army. At any rate the plant is now thoroughly 

 established in both New England and the Middle 

 States, and in early summer often whitens with its 

 bloom fields and meadows. 



The name Daisy is a poetic thought, the day's eye. 

 The EngHsh folk gave this name centuries ago to 

 Bellis perennis, Chaucer's "floures white and rede." 

 They saw in the flower a tiny copy of the sun at which 

 it gazes. There was a golden disk and shooting out 

 from it, in every direction, white rays. 



Our Ox-Eye Daisy has inherited or assumed the 

 common name, once the sole property of the little 

 English flower. The blossom appeals to the artist 

 because of its beauty and its decorative value, for 

 like all the composites, whose rays must give their 

 honey-call as long as there remains a tubular floret 

 unfertilized, its life is long. Moreover the flower is 

 used in childish divination. All children know the 

 rhyme: 



"Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, 

 Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief." 



Marguerite in "Faust" plucks the petals to the refrain: 

 "He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me." 



Again, the tiny yellow florets are thrown over 

 the shoulder from the back of the hand, deciding by 

 the number remaining any one of a dozen fancies. The 

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