DOUBLE DAISIES 263 
DOUBLE DAISIES 
Natural Order Composir#. Genus Bellis 
Betis (from Latin, bellus, pretty). A small genus of dwarf herbs, 
including only seven or eight species. There is a somewhat creeping 
rootstock from which the toothed leaves usually rise direct, on foot- 
stalks. The flower-heads are solitary, on long scapes; the disk yellow, 
the rays white or pink; the involucre formed by one or two series of 
green bracts. The ray-florets are in a single series, strap-shaped, and 
all female. The disk-florets are tubular, four- or five-toothed, bisexual. 
There are no pappus-hairs. The species are distributed over Europe, 
North Africa, and North America. 
Species and BELLIS PERENNIS (perennial), our Common Daisy, is 
Varieties. almost the only species regarded by horticulturists. The 
natural form is so well known that description is scarcely necessary, 
The leaves are stalked, oval, with a few rounded teeth, and form a 
rosette, from which spring the flower-heads with their crimson-tipped 
white rays. Its scapes are about 3 inches high, and the flowers appear 
nearly all the year round. Under cultivation it has shown considerable 
variation, generally following the line of a conversion of many or all 
of the disk-florets into rays, and so producing the so-called “double” 
flower-heads. In some of these variations the original colours have been 
retained, in others the crimson from the tips of the rays has spread all 
over them and become variously intensified. In some forms the rays 
have remained tolerably flat, in others the edges have become rolled 
inwards, producing the “ quilled” varieties. Another section (aucube- 
folia) have their leaves spotted and veined in a manner suggestive of 
the Aucuba-laurel, whence the name. 
B. ROTUNDIFOLIA (round-leaved). Leaves somewhat heart-shaped 
or oval, with waved teeth, more or less hairy. Flowers resembling the 
natural form of B. perennis, though larger, and with fewer, broader rays. 
The form cultivated is the var. cerulescens with pale-blue rays. It 
was introduced from the Mediterranean region in 1872. It requires 
frame protection in severe winters. 
Double Daisies are propagated by division of the 
plants after flowering, and planting them out in loamy 
soil. They are very suitable for forming continuous lines of edging, 
which are floriferous for a long period. The plants should be inserted 
very firmly in the ground at first, and will then soon get well estab- 
Cultivation, 
