If we look closely at a daisy - and a lens is
necessary for any but the most superficial acquaintance - we
shall see that, far from being a single flower, it is literally a
host in itself. Each of the so-called white "petals" is a female
floret, whose open corolla has grown large, white, and showy, to
aid its sisters in advertising for insect visitors - a prominence
gained only by the loss of its stamens. The yellow center is
composed of hundreds of minute tubular florets huddled together
in a green cup as closely as they can be packed. Inside each of
these tiny yellow tubes stand the stamens, literally putting
their heads together. As the pistil within the ring of stamens
develops and rises through their midst, two little hair brushes
on its tip sweep the pollen from their anthers as a rounded brush
would remove the soot from a lamp chimney. Now the pollen is
elevated to a point where any insect crawling over the floret
must remove it. The pollen gone, the pistil now spreads its two
arms, that were kept tightly closed together while any danger of
self-fertilization lasted.
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