WHITE LAYIA. WHITE DAISY.
Layia glandulosa, Hook. and Arn. Composite Family.
Stems.—Six to twelve inches high; loosely branching; hairy; often reddish. Leaves.—Sessile; linear; the upper all small and entire; the lower often lanceolate and incised pinnatifid. Heads.—Usually large and showy. Ray-flowers.—Bright, pure white, sometimes rose-color; eight to thirteen; three-lobed; an inch or less long; six lines wide. Disk-flowers.—Golden yellow; five-toothed. Each scale of the involucre clasping a ray-flower. Hab.—Columbia River to Los Angeles.
These white daisies, as they are commonly called in the south, cover the fields and plains in early spring, jostling one another in friendly proximity and stretching away in an endless perspective. They are of a charming purity, and to me are more attractive than their sisters, the tidy-tips.
They love a sandy soil, and I have seen them flourishing in the disintegrated granite of old river-beds, where the dazzling whiteness of the stones was hardly distinguishable from the blossoms. The involucre is thickly studded with curious little glands, resembling small glass-headed pins.