LXXI 
DAISY FLOWERS HAVE LEARNED TO 
COOPERATE 
I SN’T IT ODD that a modest group of plants 
has hit upon the idea of cooperative action, 
of many units working together, and that by so doing it 
has prospered until there are more of them than there 
are of any other flower-bearing member of the vegetable 
kingdom! 
It was the members of the daisy family that learned to 
act together. Other flowering plants send forth single 
blossoms, which offer drops of honey to bees as pay for 
bringing them pollen. Then the plants set single seeds 
or small clusters of them. 
The flowers of the daisy family club together. A hun¬ 
dred or so of them form in a group. They bind them¬ 
selves together in a cluster or head. Their business is 
to make seed to carry on the race, and they will work 
together to that end. 
Their first need is pollen. They know that the bees 
have, sticking to their bodies, from other flowers, this 
dust that will make them fertile. They want the bees 
to come to visit them. Perhaps a bit of advertising 
would help! 
So the daisy flower or the sunflower or the aster or 
any one of many other members of this group ask the 
florets on the outside to send out streamers that will at¬ 
tract the attention of the bees. These florets respond, and 
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