The Daisy 



No moisture can pass, no small insects bite, through 

 this protecting sheath. 



A lens, however, reveals much more than this. 

 Firstly, it shows us that round the yellow disk at 

 the base of the white rays is a ring of little forks, 

 each accompanied by sundry white hairs. The hairs 

 represent the calyx, the white rays are the corollas, 

 and the forks are each the top of a wee column 

 rising from a minute seed-case containing an infinites- 

 imal seed. Therefore every ray represents a flower, 

 but only a flower of one sex — a female flower — for 

 there is no trace of stamens within it. Secondly, it 

 resolves the little areas of the central yellow disk 

 into a large number, perhaps a couple of hundred, 

 of minute florets ; those in the outer rings are open, 

 those in the centre are but buds. But each is a 

 perfect flower, consisting of a tube-like corolla, five 

 stamens with heads all joined, and the same minute 

 seed-case and column as in the rays. In the outer- 

 most rings there are the little forks standing up, 



but distinguished here by carrying tiny brushes ; 



13 



