Wee, modest crimson-tippit flower
of Burns. This was first called “day’s eye,” because it closed at night and opened at dawn,—
That well by reason men it call may,
The Daisie, or else the eye of the day,
sang Chaucer nearly four hundred years ago. In England our flower is called “ox-eye” and “moon daisy;” in Scotland, “dog-daisy.”
The plant is not native to this country, but was brought from the Old World by the early colonists.
Daisy Fleabane. Sweet Scabious.
Erigeron annuus. Composite Family (p. [13]).
Stem.—Stout, from three to five feet high, branched, hairy. Leaves.—Coarsely and sharply toothed, the lowest ovate, the upper narrower. Flower-heads.—Small, clustered, composed of both ray and disk-flowers, the former white, purplish, or pinkish, the latter yellow.
During the summer months the fields and waysides are whitened with these very common flowers which look somewhat like small white daisies or asters.
Another common species is E. strigosus, a smaller plant, with smaller flower-heads also, but with the white ray-flowers longer. The generic name is from two Greek words signifying spring and an old man, in allusion to the hoariness of certain species which flower in the spring. The fleabanes were so named from the belief that when burned they were objectionable to insects. They were formerly hung in country cottages for the purpose of excluding such unpleasant intruders.