20 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
knowledge of facts as they really are, frequently mislead and 
confuse the mind, we will commence our close examination of 
the daisy by digging up as large a root of the plant as we can 
find. The inhabitant of a town or city has it almost as much 
within his power to study this botanical specimen as one who 
lives in the wildest country district, for there are but few places 
so entirely denaturalised as not to afford some space devoted to 
a park, green, or open play-ground. On such a plot of ground 
we may almost surely find the omnipresent daisy. Those who 
have gardens and grass-plots or lawns, be they large or small, 
know but too well how inveterately these little plants disperse 
themselves over the otherwise smooth green surface, and disturb 
the equal growth of the velvet turf. Much as we delight to see 
the poet’s flower on “waste or woodland rock or plain,” we 
may without compunction remove it from our garden carpets, 
and turn it to scientific account. 
First let us observe the root, or roots we should say, for they 
are perennial, and in digging up what appears to be but one 
daisy plant, we are sure to remove several others. There is an 
original root-stalk or rhizome, which sends into the earth num- 
berless fibrous rootlets ; from each original plant proceeds one 
or more creeping stems or offsets, which at a distance of about 
an inch or so produce buds or other little plants which in their 
turn send down fibres into the ground and propagate themselves 
by other offsets (pi. ii. fig-. 1). This mode of propagation does 
not extend indefinitely as in some plants with creeping roots, 
such as the Potentilla, for we do not often find more than two 
or three offsets attached to each plant. It would appear as 
though, after producing two or three new plants, the original 
connecting stem died away and left the young plants free. 
Undoubtedly, the original plants are produced from the seeds, 
of which we shall presently speak ; but the mode of propagation 
we have described is evidently very general in the daisy, for we 
seldom dig up a root without finding the attendant offsets at- 
tached to it. 
The roots of the daisy have a slightly bitter astringent taste, 
and contain, in common with other plants of the same group, a 
portion of tannic acid. This principle has, however, never been 
separated, and it is doubtful whether the old recipe of “ daisy- 
roots and cream ” had more than a fancied efficacy. 
Above the ground the daisy appears as almost interwoven with 
the materials forming the green carpet of our fields and pastures, 
so closely does it adapt itself to the circumstances in which it is 
found. In barren and uncultivated land it becomes a very 
dwarf, keeping its leaves very near the ground, and with its 
flower-stalk scarcely raised above the leaves. In rich mould 
and under favourable conditions its leaves assume a greater size, 
