But what are these white rays, lightly shaded with pink, which enclose or encircle the florets? (See Fig. 32, a.) Examine them at their points of insertion. You will perceive there some traces of reproductive organs, among which the style is most prominent. As for the corolla, it is represented only by its brown lip, which is immeasurably developed. It is this exaggerated development which constitutes the white rays, or petals, that prove so attractive to the eye. (See Fig. 32, b.) Do not forget to observe, by the way, that they are rose-tinted only on the side which directly undergoes the action of the light. To distinguish them from the tubular florets,—the tubulifloræ,—these "white rays" have been called ligulate florets, or ligulifloræ.
The complete flowers (or the florets) and the rays (or partially abortive flowers) form, in their aggregate, what our botanists have agreed to call an inflorescence of the capitula. Disposed quincuncially on an ovoid receptacle, or phoranth, both are grouped (Fig. 32, c) in alternating rows.
Fig. 31. Fig. 32.
To explain thoroughly this species of inflorescence, we will venture upon an hypothesis. Let us suppose that we could elongate the said ovoid receptacle as if it were a ball of wax,—it would be changed into a sheath-like inflorescence; all our smaller florets, whose union composes what is improperly called the flower of the daisy, would be ranged around an elongated, instead of being placed upon a flattened axis. This axis characterises all the Synantheraceæ of the family of the Compositæ (a sub-order); sometimes naked, sometimes garnished with varied hairs, either shrunken or persistent, it has furnished several characters useful in the classification of genera and species. But possessed with a mania for complicating everything, botanists designate it indifferently receptacle, phoranthe, clinanthe, etc. Why not employ one and the same word to distinguish one and the same thing? Why not have preserved the name axis, and have attached to it such qualifying terms as might be necessary to indicate simple differences of forms?
The ancients looked upon nature,—I cannot sufficiently insist upon this theme,—with quite other eyes than we do. The study and description of characters, so indispensable to our classifications and nomenclatures, appeared to them a useless labour; they had not even an idea of its value. But it was of signal importance to them to investigate the virtues and properties of plants, so far as they might be rendered available for the preservation of health and the cure of disease.
Our daisy is common in Greece. Theophrastus, therefore, ought to have known it, though he does not refer to it. It is common also in the plains of Italy. Pliny was the first to describe it, under the name of bellis; he attributes to it the properties of the St John's wort.[44] And it is noteworthy that the daisy belongs to the same family as the latter; a circumstance certainly not known in the days of Pliny.
The botanists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are by no means niggards in the eulogiums which they lavish on the medicinal properties of our graceful Synantheracea. Bock (better known, perhaps, under the name of Tragus, a Goat), who mistook the yellow anthers for the seeds, recommended the leaves of the Gänzeblume (goose-flower, as he called it) as a laxative. Tabernæmontanus prescribed them as a remedy for cramps in the stomach and the spitting of blood.
Ray, who expresses his astonishment that the Greeks had not spoken of it, looked upon the daisy as an excellent vulnerary. "Externally," says he, "we employ it with success in the form either of a poultice or a fomentation; for internal treatment, we mix its juice with vulnerary potions."—These properties procured it the name of Consolida minor, which would make it the pendant of the larger Consolida, Symphytum officinale, a species of the Boraginaceæ, very common in damp and shady localities.
Ruel recommended cataplasms of daisies and cowslips for gout and scrofulous tumours. Chomel affirmed that he knew by experience that the flowers of the daisy and the herb robert[45] (Geranium Robertianum), if dried in a hot dish, and applied to the head, considerably relieved headache.[46]