Wild Flowers as They Grow 



The Daisy is the signal flag of spring, but spring 

 has not really come until you can put your foot on 

 twelve Daisies, say the country children, and their 

 elders have a rather gruesome superstition that if 

 you omit to put your foot on the first Daisy you 

 see, Daisies will cover either you, or a dear friend 

 of yours before the year is out. 



But though everyone knows the Daisy, yet only 

 a few are aware* of the complicated processes that 

 go on within the circle of those gleaming rays, for 

 a Daisy, like some very small and delicate watch, 

 has works which are invisible to the naked eye. 

 One has to take the word of a botanist about what 

 is there unless one possesses a magnif5dng glass. At 

 an ordinary glance we see a yellow disk, almost 

 sohd-looking in the centre, but broken up into tiny 

 areas in the outer part. Round this is a ring of some 

 twenty white rays each with two little teeth at the 

 tip. At the back of the flower is a strong sheath 

 of thick green bracts which, without, have a scattered 

 covering of white hairs and, within, hold bitter juices. 



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