EARLY SUMMER FLOWERS 



175 



THE DAISY (Bellis perennis, L.) AND THE FEVERFEW 

 (Matricaria inodora, L.). 



The Daisy is such a common and successful plant that it 

 must be referred to. Owing to the small size of its flowers 

 many of their features are 

 difficult to make out in 

 the Daisy itself, and their 

 study may be supple- 

 mented by that of the 

 Feverfew, in which the 

 flowers are similarly con- 

 structed but somewhat 

 larger. 



The Daisy occurs 

 everywhere in waste and 

 grassy ground, and is a 

 successful weed in lawns. 

 Its mode of growth will 

 be best shown in speci- 

 mens not from a well- 

 mown lawn, but from 

 some spot on which the 

 plants have grown for 

 some years undisturbed 

 (Fig. 83). In such a 

 plant of medium size the 

 root-system will be found 

 to consist of a number 

 of stout, cylindrical roots 



, . ' _ , FIG. 83. Daisy bearing inflorescences. 



bearing finer branches. (After Ba iiion.) 



These roots spring from 



the lower end of a short, stout stem. The latter may form a 

 single leafy shoot, but more commonly the shoot is branched 

 and a number of leafy shoots extend on all sides from the main 

 stem, in connection with the root-system. These branches lie 

 along the soil, and their older parts, like the surface of the main 

 stem, are marked by the scars of fallen leaves. Nearer the tip of 



