THE DAISY. 21 
the stalk rises several inches in height, and all its parts expand 
in proportion. 
The leaves, of a bright grass green colour, appear above 
the ground at the end of the offsets, around which they 
are closely set ; they are usually ten or twelve in number, 
shaped like a spatula or oval, with the end nearest the stem 
gradually narrowing off. The petiole or leaf-stalk can scarcely 
be said to exist. At all events, it appears more like the narrow 
continuation of the leaf than a petiole properly so called. 
These leaves are notched all round the broad end, which notches 
are tooth- shaped; they appear covered with hairs, which are 
depressed or lie on the surface of the leaf, and are more 
abundant on the lower side than the upper. The epidermis or 
cuticle exhibits a number of little openings, known as stomates, 
from the Greek aro/m, a mouth, which have the usual form and 
shape of those found in exogenous plants (pi. ii. fig. 4). These 
orifices allow a free communication between the external air 
and the internal tissues of the leaf ; hence they have been 
called breathing pores. Some botanists have considered them 
as organs for the absorption of carbonic acid gas, which is the 
principal food of plants ; but others, amongst them Schleiden, 
regard them solely as organs of exhalation, enabling the plant 
to throw off” extraneous moisture. This view, which seems more 
probable than any other, is confirmed by the fact that stomates 
are entirely absent in succulent plants, and that in moist states 
of the atmosphere they are found closed, and in dry weather 
they remain open. There is but one rib up the centre of the 
leaf, the veins proceeding therefrom being hardly perceptible ; 
but, by holding up the leaf to the light of a candle, they may 
be distinctly traced. Botanists describe the leaf of the daisy 
as obovate, spathulate, single-ribbed, crenate, dentate, which 
comprises in a few words what I have endeavoured thus to 
simplify and explain. 
From the midst of the depressed whorl of leaves springs the 
simple flower-stalk, bearing at its summit the one flower head. 
Each little plant or circlet of leaves may send up one, two, or 
three flower-stalks. These are covered with hairs, which become 
thicker and more dense towards the top. These hairs resemble 
those on the leaf, but are shorter (fig. 15). In their early stage 
the flower-stalks are solid ; but as they grow they become hollow 
in the centre, and the cavity is especially evident near the top ; 
this is formed by the growth of the tissue of which it is com- 
posed being more rapid externally than internally (fig. 2). Like 
the stems of all other exogenous plants, the stalk of the daisy is 
composed of cellular pith in the interior, which is removed as it 
becomes hollow ; then some layers of woodjr fibre and bundles 
of spiral vessels, which are covered with an outer covering of 
