176 THE BOOK OF NATURE STUDY 



each shoot comes the rosette of foliage-leaves, which are closely 

 crowded on the stem. Each foliage-leaf is simple, the leaf-stalk 

 narrowing slightly from the leaf -base and then widening out into 

 the dark green leaf-blade, the edge of which has a few teeth. 

 The surface of the leaves and stem is sparsely covered with 

 short, coarse hairs. 



The plant, according to its size, bears one or many inflorescences 

 or flower-heads, the so-called " flowers " of the Daisy. Each of 

 these stands at the end of a long, bare, green stalk, and some little 

 care will be needed to make out the way in which the shoot 

 bearing a number of flower-heads is constructed. It will be found 

 that the shoot always ends in a flower-head. Its further growth 

 is continued by a lateral bud, which forms a shoot bearing two or 

 three leaves and in turn ends in an inflorescence. These therefore 

 are only apparently lateral. 



When growing on a lawn the Daisy plants spread vegetatively 

 by the production of short prostrate branches. In this way the 

 patches extend, and the growth of the plant is further favoured 

 by the rosettes of leaves pressed close to the ground escaping 

 destruction by the mower. 



Each flower-head has a long, cylindrical, leafless stalk, which 

 expands into a conical upper end. This is best shown on splitting 

 a flower-head in half, when the little flowers will be seen closely 

 crowded together upon the surface of the expanded stem of the 

 inflorescence. On the outside of the inflorescence we find a 

 series of small green leaves. These are the bracts, and covered 

 in all the developing flowers when the inflorescence was in bud. 

 The flowers or florets are of two kinds. Little yellow tubular 

 florets are crowded together, forming the centre or disc of the 

 flower-head. Around them comes a circle of florets of the ray, 

 the white corollas of which are drawn out into strap-shaped 

 structures ; this renders the flower-head as a whole more con- 

 spicuous. 



If the general mode of growth of the plant and the nature of 

 the so-called flowers are appreciated, the details of the flower and 

 fruit, though they can be made out in the Daisy, will be more easily 

 studied in a plant with similar inflorescences but larger florets. 

 For this purpose we shall take 



