40 Flowers and their Pedi 



orees. 



in itself tend to alter the colour. And as a matter of 

 fact, the vast mass of those composites which have 

 progressed to the stage of having rays — which have 

 got these two separate forms of flowers, for show and 

 for use respectively — have the rays of the same colour 

 as the central bells, that is to say, generally yellow. 

 Of this stage the sunflower is a familiar and very 

 striking representative. It has bright golden central 

 florets, and large expanded rays of the same colour. 

 To anybody who wants to study the structure of the 

 daisy without a microscope, the sunflower is quite as 

 valuable and indispensable as it is to our most 

 advanced aesthetic school in painting and decoration. 

 Moreover, it shows us admirably this intermediate 

 stage, when the compound flower-head has acquired a 

 distinct row of outer attractive florets, adding wealth 

 and expansiveness to its display of colour, but when 

 it has not yet attempted any specialisation of hue in 

 these purely ornamental organs. The daisy, how- 

 ever, together with the camomile, the ox-eye daisy, 

 and many other similar composites, has carried the 

 process one step further. It has coloured its rays 

 white, and has even begun to tinge them with pink. 

 This makes these highest of all composites the most 

 successful plants in the whole world. If one con- 

 siders that daisies begin to bloom on January i, and 



