228 THE ASSOCIATIONS OF FLOWERS 
what we are accustomed to regard as a single flower, con- 
tains within itself more than a hundred. 
The central part of a compound flower is generally of 
a yellow colour, as in the Michaelmas-daisy, the China- 
aster, and others ; and the rays are either white, yellow, 
blue, or of some shade of red or purple. There is no 
instance in which a flower has yellow rays and a white, 
blue, or red centre. 
Many compound flowers are, like the dandelion, formed 
entirely of rays, and are thence called ligulate, or strap- 
shaped. 
Anyone may recognise the greater number of plants of 
the natural order Compositse, to which the aster belongs, 
by the star-shaped, compound flowers, if he only remem- 
ber that the “ bonnie gem,” the daisy, is one of them. A 
few, as the thistle, are formed differently. The daisy ! 
How many beautiful thoughts has this “ modest, crimson- 
tipped flower” suggested! Wordsworth’s three beautiful 
poems have been quoted too often to be quoted here; but 
they are well known. Spenser sang of the “ little dazie, 
that at evening closes.” Chaucer called it “la douce 
Marguerite,” and “the e’e of daie;” and Ben Jonson 
had a friendly word for the “bright day’s eye.” The 
botanist who named it “ bellis perennis ” admired the 
spring beauty; and one of Chaucer’s names. Marguerite, 
is still preserved for this flower in France, and was taken 
from the Latin word for a pearl. The French call it 
also “ Paquerette,” because it blossoms most about Easter 
(“ Paques ”). The lamented Mrs. Maclean called our 
early favourites 
“ Daisies whose rose-touched leaves retrace 
The gold and blush of morning’s hours;” 
and many poets who “ have never penned their inspira- 
tion,” but who are running gaily among the pearl-clad 
meadows, gathering it in handfuls, and pouring out the 
love of their little hearts upon the wild daisy, will sing 
of it when they can better express the feelings they already 
experience. 
The large ox-eye or ox-daisy (Chrysanthemum leucan- 
themum), though ornamental to the held, is injurious to 
the pasture, and is considered so much so by the Danes 
