which nearly 10,000 species are
recorded. In England the order is very familiar, as it contains three of
our commonest kinds, the Daisy, the Dandelion, and the Groundsel. It may
give some idea of the large range of the family when we find that there
are some 600 recorded species of the Groundsel alone, of which eleven
are in England. I shall not weary you with a strictly scientific
description of the Daisy, but I will give you instead Rousseau's
well-known description. It is fairly accurate, though not strictly
scientific: "Take," he says, "one of those little flowers, which cover
all the pastures, and which every one knows by the name of Daisy. Look
at it well, for I am sure you would never have guessed from its
appearance that this flower, which is so small and delicate, is really
composed of between two and three hundred other flowers, all of them
perfect, that is, each of them having its corolla, stamens, pistil, and
fruit; in a word, as perfect in its species as a flower of the Hyacinth
or Lily. Every one of these leaves, which are white above and red
underneath, and form a kind of crown round the flower, appearing to be
nothing more than little petals, are in reality so many true flowers;
and every one of those tiny yellow things also which you see in the
centre, and which at first you have perhaps taken for nothing but
stamens, are real flowers. . . . Pull out one of the white leaves of the
flower; you will think at first that it is flat from one end to the
other, but look carefully at the end by which it was fastened to the
flower, and you will see that this end is not flat, but round and hollow
in the form of a tube, and that a little thread ending in two horns
issues from the tube. This thread is the forked style of the flower,
which, as you now see, is flat only at top. Next look at the little
yellow things in the middle of the flower, and which, as I have told
you, are all so many flowers; if the flower is sufficiently advanced,
you will see some of them open in the middle and even cut into several
parts. These are the monopetalous corollas. . . . . This is enough to
show you by the eye the possibility that all these small affairs, both
white and yellow, may be so many distinct flowers, and this is a
constant fact" (Quoted in Lindley's "Ladies' Botany," vol. i.)[374:1]

But Rousseau does not mention one feature which I wish to describe to
you, as I know few points in botany more beautiful than the arrangemen