THE YOUNG 



NATURALIST. 



195 



blossoms as a whole more conspicuous. 

 This advantage is shared alike by the 

 thistle and dandelion, and in these two 

 types the florets are all alike in func- 

 tion, each being capable of deriving 

 similar benefits from the visits of the 

 insect guests, and contributing an 

 equal quota to the common good. But 

 in the daisy and other ray flowered 

 species, not only is the flower head 

 more showy and doubtless attractive 

 by its greater expanse, and the different 

 colours which often prevails in the two 

 parts — as in the yellow centre and 

 white crimson tipped ray of the daisy 

 — making it doubly alluring, but they 

 also being endowed with mobility, rise 

 up and fold over the precious central 

 florets, at night shielding them injury, 

 and also when the air is laden with 

 moisture protecting them rain and dew. 

 But Nature conserves all her energies 

 and wastes none of her forces, and 

 this truly marvellous endowment and 

 development has been acquired at the 

 expense of one of the essential organs. 

 Thus the ray florets of the daisy are 

 unisexual, that is they are pistillate 

 only, the stamens being absent, and 

 although they produce fruit and per- 

 fect seeds they are entirely dependent 

 for the fertilising influence of the pol- 

 len, upon the central florets, which 

 they protect and shield. This division 

 of labour, as it may be called, is carried 

 still further in the " ox-eye " daisy, 

 and other similar large rayed plants, 



in which the ligulate florets often ex- 

 ceed and inch in length. In these 

 plants the essential organs of the ray 

 florets have become completely abor- 

 tive, and, consequently, the florets 

 showy though they be, are entirely 

 neuter and barren, producing no seeds. 

 And thus we see as the ray florets in- 

 crease in size, and thus add to the 

 beauty and attractiveness of the flower 

 head, they individually become more 

 and more sterile, seeming as if for the 

 good of the community as a whole, they 

 had performed a patriotic act of self- 

 abnegation. An approach to the same 

 state is seen in various umhelliferce, 

 such as the Sweet Cicely, in which 

 only a few of the central inconspicuous 

 flowers produce seeds, whilst the larger 

 outer ones are barreii. A beautiful 

 example of the same law is furnished 

 by the snowball or guelder rose ( Yi- 

 hurnum opnlm), which owes the attrac- 

 tive beauty of its pure clusters of blos- 

 soms to the largely developed corollas 

 of the neuter outer flowers, the small 

 inconspicuous central greenish ones 

 alone producing fruits. We see an 

 analagous case in the animal world, in 

 ants and bees, the most highly specia- 

 lised of all the insect tribes, with their 

 well regulated communities and three 

 classes of inhabitants — females, males, 

 and neuters. 



The Daisy is generally distributed 

 throughout Europe, extending even to 

 Iceland. It also occurs in N. Africa 



