14 Flowers and their Pedigrees. 



before the flowers of the daisy had these five separate 

 petals, they must have passed through a still earlier 

 stage when they had no coloured petals at all. And 

 as it is always simpler and easier to recount history 

 in its natural order, from the first stages to the last, 

 rather than to trace it backward from the last to the 

 first, I shall make no apology for beginning the his- 

 tory of the daisy at the beginning, and pointing out 

 as we go along the marks which' each stage has left 

 upon its present shape or its existing arrangement 

 and colour. 



The very earliest ancestor of the daisy, then, with 

 which we need deal to-day, was an extremely simple 

 and ancient flower, hardly recognisable as such to any 

 save a botanical eye. And here I must begin, I fear, 

 with a single paragraph of rather dull and technical 

 matter, lest you should miss the meaning of some 

 things I shall have to tell you in the sequel. If you 

 look into the middle of a buttercup or a lily you know 

 that you will see certain httle yellow spikes and 

 knobs within the petals, which form a sort of central 

 rosette, and look as if they were put there merely to 

 give finish and completeness to the whole blossom. 

 But in reality these seemingly unimportant spikes 

 and knobs are the most important parts, and the only 

 indispensable parts, of the entire flower. The bright 



