Plants and their children

by Frances Theodora Parsons

When you go into the garden where a big sunflower (Fig. [275]) is trying to peep into your neighbor’s yard, I hope your eyes will be sharp enough to see that this sunflower is a cousin to the field daisy, and that, although its brown center is much larger than the daisy’s golden eyes, it is made up of tube flowers (Fig. [276]) shaped much like the tube flowers of the daisy.

And you will notice, I am sure, that the yellow circle about this brown center is made up of strap flowers (Fig. [277]) just like the circle about the daisy center.

Fig. 276

And what is that which falls like a golden shower from the great brown center of the sunflower? Ah, you know well that that is the precious pollen which powders thickly the visiting bees and butterflies, and goes to make new sunflower plants.

The picture at the head of this chapter shows the wild sister of the garden sunflower.

Fig. 277

When you come across the bright blue flower of the chicory, you will be reminded, I hope, of your dear old friend the dandelion; for the chicory head, like that of the dandelion, is made up entirely of strap flowers.

But when you pick a spray of everlasting, whose white and yellow clusters you find on the rocky hillsides, you will have to use your eyes with great care if you are to discover that here, as in the great purple thistle head, are nothing but tube flowers.