I ALMOST feel that I ought to apologize to the Field Club for asking them to listen to a paper on so small a subject as the Daisy. But, indeed, I have selected that subject because I think it is one especially suited to a Naturalists' Field Club. The members of such a club, as I think, should take notice of everything. Nothing should be beneath their notice. It should be their province to note a multitude of little facts unnoticed by others; they should be "minute philosophers," and they might almost take as their motto the wise words which Milton put into the mouth of Adam, after he had been instructed to "be lowlie wise" (especially in the study of the endless wonders of sea, and earth, and sky that surrounded him)—

I do not apologize for the lowness and humbleness of my subject, but, with "no delay of preface" (Milton), I take you at once to it. In speaking of the Daisy, I mean to confine myself to the Daisy, commonly so-called, merely reminding you that there are also the Great or Ox-eye, or Moon Daisy (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum), the Michaelmas Daisy (Aster), and the Blue Daisy of the South of Europe (Globularia). The name has been also given to a few other plants, but none of them are true Daisies.

I begin with its name. Of this there can be little doubt; it is the "Day's-eye," the bright little eye that only opens by day, and goes to sleep at night. This, whether the true derivation or not, is no modern fancy. It is, at least, as old as Chaucer, and probably much older. Here are Chaucer's well-known words—

And Ben Jonson boldly spoke of them as "bright Daye's-eyes."

There is, however, another derivation. Dr. Prior says: "Skinner derives it from dais or canopy, and Gavin Douglas seems to have understood it in the sense of a small canopy in the line:

"Had we not the A.-S. dÆges-eage, we could hardly refuse to admit that this last is a far more obvious and probable explanation of the word than the pretty poetical thought conveyed in Day's-eye." This was Dr. Prior's opinion in his first edition of his valuable "Popular Names of British Plants;" but it is withdrawn in his second edition, and he now is content with the Day's-eye derivation. Dr. Prior has kindly informed me that he rejected it because he can find no old authority for Skinner's derivation, and because it is doubtful whether the Daisy in Gavin Douglas's line does not mean a Marigold, and not what we call a Daisy. The derivation, however, seemed worth a passing notice. Its other English names are Dog Daisy, to distinguish it from the large Ox-eyed Daisy; Banwort, "because it helpeth bones[362:1] to knit agayne" (Turner); Bruisewort, for the same reason; Herb Margaret, from its French name; and in the North, Bairnwort, from its associations with childhood. As to its other names, the plant seems to have been unknown to the Greeks, and has no Greek name, but is fortunate in having as pretty a name in Latin as it has in English. Its modern botanical name is Bellis, and it has had the name from the time of Pliny. Bellis must certainly come from bellus (pretty), and so it is at once stamped as the pretty one even by botanists—though another derivation has been given to the name, of which I will speak soon. The French call it Marguerite, no doubt for its pearly look, or Pasquerette, to mark it as the spring flower; the German name for it is very different, and not easy to explain—GÄnseblume, i.e., Goose-flower; the Danish name is Tusinfryd (thousand joys); and the Welsh, Sensigl (trembling star).

As Pliny is the first that mentions the plant, his account is worth quoting. "As touching a Daisy," he says (I quote from Holland's translation, 1601), "a yellow cup it hath also, and the same is crowned, as it were, with a garland, consisting of five and fifty little leaves, set round about it in manner of fine pales. These be flowers of the meadow, and most of such are of no use at all, no marvile, therefore, if they be namelesse; howbeit, some give them one tearme and some another" (book xxi. cap. 8). And again, "There is a hearbe growing commonly in medows, called the Daisie, with a white floure, and partly inclining to red, which, if it is joined with Mugwort in an ointment, is thought to make the medicine farre more effectual for the King's evil" (book xxvi. cap. 5).

We have no less than three legends of the origin of the flower. In one legend, not older, I believe, than the fourteenth century (the legend is given at full length by Chaucer in his "Legende of Goode Women"), Alcestis was turned into a Daisy. Another legend records that "this plant is called Bellis, because it owes its origin to Belides, a granddaughter to Danaus, and one of the nymphs called Dryads, that presided over the meadows and pastures in ancient times. Belides is said to have encouraged the suit of Ephigeus, but whilst dancing on the grass with this rural deity she attracted the admiration of Vertumnus, who, just as he was about to seize her in his embrace, saw her transformed into the humble plant that now bears her name." This legend I have only seen in Phillips's "Flora Historica." I need scarcely tell you that neither Belides or Ephigeus are classical names—they are mediÆval inventions. The next legend is a Celtic one; I find it recorded both by Lady Wilkinson and Mrs. Lankester. I should like to know its origin; but with that grand contempt for giving authorities which lady-authors too often show, neither of these ladies tells us whence she got the legend. The legend says that "the virgins of Morven, to soothe the grief of Malvina, who had lost her infant son, sang to her, 'We have seen, O! Malvina, we have seen the infant you regret, reclining on a light mist; it approached us, and shed on our fields a harvest of new flowers. Look, O! Malvina. Among these flowers we distinguish one with a golden disk surrounded by silver leaves; a sweet tinge of crimson adorns its delicate rays; waved by a gentle wind, we might call it a little infant playing in a green meadow; and the flower of thy bosom has given a new flower to the hills of Cromla.'" Since that day the daughters of Morven have consecrated the Daisy to infancy. "It is," said they, "the flower of innocence, the flower of the newborn." Besides these legends, the Daisy is also connected with the legendary history of St. Margaret. The legend is given by Chaucer, but I will tell it to you in the words of a more modern poet—

Catholic Florist, Feb. 22, St. Margaret's Day.

Yet, in spite of the general association of Daisies with St. Margaret, Mrs. Jameson says that she has seen one, and only one, picture of St. Margaret with Daisies.

The poetry or poetical history of the Daisy is very curious. It begins with Chaucer, whose love of the flower might almost be called an idolatry. But, as it begins with Chaucer, so, for a time, it almost ends with him. Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton scarcely mention it. It holds almost no place in the poetry of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; but, at the close of the eighteenth century, it has the good luck to be uprooted by Burns's plough, and he at once sings its dirge and its beauties; and then the flower at once becomes a celebrity. Wordsworth sings of it in many a beautiful verse; and I think it is scarcely too much to say that since his time not an English poet has failed to pay his homage to the humble beauty of the Daisy. I do not purpose to take you through all these poets—time and knowledge would fail me to introduce you to them all. I shall but select some of those which I consider best worth selection. I begin, of course, with Chaucer, and even with him I must content myself with a selection—

I could give you several other quotations from Chaucer, but I will content myself with this, for I think unbounded admiration of a flower can scarcely go further than the lines I have read to you. In an early poem published by Ritson is the following—

Ancient Songs and Ballads, vol. i, p. 63.

Stephen Hawes, who lived in the time of Henry VII., wrote a poem called the "Temple of Glass." In that temple he tells us—

And among these lovers—

We next come to Spenser. In the "Muiopotmos," he gives a list of flowers that the butterfly frequents, with most descriptive epithets to each flower most happily chosen. Among the flowers are—

By "decking prime" he means they are the ornament of the morning.[366:1] Again he introduces the Daisy in a stanza of much beauty, that commences the June Eclogue of the "Shepherd's Calendar."

From Spenser we come to Shakespeare, and when we remember the vast acquaintance with flowers of every kind that he shows, and especially when we remember how often he almost seems to go out of his way to tell of the simple wild flowers of England, it is surprising that the Daisy is almost passed over entirely by him. Here are the passages in which he names the flowers. First, in the poem of the "Rape of Lucrece," he has a very pretty picture of Lucrece as she lay asleep—

In "Love's Labour's Lost" is the song of Spring, beginning—

In "Hamlet" Daisies are twice mentioned in connection with Ophelia in her madness. "There's a Daisy!" she said, as she distributed her flowers; but she made no comment on the Daisy as she did on her other flowers. And, in the description of her death, the Queen tells us that—

And in "Cymbeline" the General Lucius gives directions for the burial of Cloten—

And in the introductory song to the "Two Noble Kinsmen," which is claimed by some as Shakespeare's, we find among the other flowers of spring—

These are the only places in which the Daisy is mentioned in Shakespeare's plays, and it is a little startling to find that of these six one is in a song for clowns, and two others are connected with the poor mad princess. I hope that you will not use Shakespeare's authority against me, that to talk of Daisies is only fit for clowns and madmen.

Contemporary with Shakespeare was Cutwode, who in the "Caltha Poetarum," published in 1599, thus describes the Daisy—

Stanza 21, 22.

Drayton, in the "Polyolbion," 15th Song, represents the Naiads engaged in twining garlands for the marriage of Tame and Isis, and considering that he—

they collect among other wild flowers—

And to the same effect, in his "Description of Elysium"—

Browne, contemporary with Shakespeare, has these pretty lines on the Daisy—

Brit. Past., ii. 3.

And the following must be about the same date—

The Deceased Maiden's Lover—Roxburghe Ballads, i, 341.

I am not surprised to find that Milton barely mentions the Daisy. His knowledge of plants was very small compared to Shakespeare's, and seems to have been, for the most part, derived from books. His descriptions of plants all savour more of study than the open air. I only know of two places in which he mentions the Daisy. In the "l'Allegro" he speaks of "Meadows trim with Daisies pied," and in another place he speaks of "Daisies trim." But I am surprised to find the Daisy overlooked by two such poets as Robert Herrick and George Herbert. Herrick sang of flowers most sweetly, few if any English poets have sung of them more sweetly, but he has little to say of the Daisy. He has one poem, indeed, addressed specially to a Daisy, but he simply uses the little flower, and not very successfully, as a peg on which to hang the praises of his mistress. He uses it more happily in describing the pleasures of a country life—

And again—

George Herbert had a deep love for flowers, and a still deeper love for finding good Christian lessons in the commonest things about him. He delights in being able to say—

but I believe he never mentions the Daisy.

Of the poets of the seventeenth century I need only make one short quotation from Dryden—

I need not dwell on the other poets of the seventeenth century. In most of them a casual allusion to the Daisy may be found, but little more. Nor need I dwell at all on the poets of the eighteenth century. In the so-called Augustan age of poetry, the Daisy could not hope to attract any attention. It was the correct thing if they had to speak of the country to speak of the "Daisied" or "Daisy-spangled" meads, but they could not condescend to any nearer approach to the little flower. If they had they would have found that they had chosen their epithet very badly. I never yet saw a "Daisy-spangled" meadow.[370:1] The flowers may be there, but the long Grasses effectually hide them. And so I come per saltum to the end of the eighteenth century, and at once to Burns, who brought the Daisy again into notice. He thus regrets the uprooting of the Daisy by his plough—

With Burns we may well join Clare, another peasant poet from Northamptonshire, whose poems are not so much known as they deserve to be. His allusions to wild flowers always mark his real observation of them, and his allusions to the Daisy are frequent; thus—

Again, alluding to his own obscurity—

Again, in his description of evening, he does not omit to notice the closing of the Daisy at sunset—

And so we come to Wordsworth, whose love of the Daisy almost equalled Chaucer's. His allusions and addresses to the Daisy are numerous, but I have only space for a small selection. First, are two stanzas from a long poem specially to the Daisy—

The other poem from Wordsworth that I shall read to you is one that has received the highest praise from all readers, and by Ruskin (no mean critic, and certainly not always given to praises) is described as "two delicious stanzas, followed by one of heavenly imagination."[372:1] The poem is "An Address to the Daisy"—

With these beautiful lines I might well conclude my notices of the poetical history of the Daisy, but, to bring it down more closely to our own times, I will remind you of a poem by Tennyson, entitled "The Daisy." It is a pleasant description of a southern tour brought to his memory by finding a dried Daisy in a book. He says—

Thus I have picked several pretty flowers of poetry for you from the time of Chaucer to our own. I could have made the posy fifty-fold larger, but I could, probably, have found no flowers for the posy more beautiful, or more curious, than these few.

I now come to the botany of the Daisy. The Daisy belongs to the immense family of the CompositÆ, a family which contains one-tenth of the flowering plants of the world, and of which nearly 10,000 species are recorded. In England the order is very familiar, as it contains three of our commonest kinds, the Daisy, the Dandelion, and the Groundsel. It may give some idea of the large range of the family when we find that there are some 600 recorded species of the Groundsel alone, of which eleven are in England. I shall not weary you with a strictly scientific description of the Daisy, but I will give you instead Rousseau's well-known description. It is fairly accurate, though not strictly scientific: "Take," he says, "one of those little flowers, which cover all the pastures, and which every one knows by the name of Daisy. Look at it well, for I am sure you would never have guessed from its appearance that this flower, which is so small and delicate, is really composed of between two and three hundred other flowers, all of them perfect, that is, each of them having its corolla, stamens, pistil, and fruit; in a word, as perfect in its species as a flower of the Hyacinth or Lily. Every one of these leaves, which are white above and red underneath, and form a kind of crown round the flower, appearing to be nothing more than little petals, are in reality so many true flowers; and every one of those tiny yellow things also which you see in the centre, and which at first you have perhaps taken for nothing but stamens, are real flowers.... Pull out one of the white leaves of the flower; you will think at first that it is flat from one end to the other, but look carefully at the end by which it was fastened to the flower, and you will see that this end is not flat, but round and hollow in the form of a tube, and that a little thread ending in two horns issues from the tube. This thread is the forked style of the flower, which, as you now see, is flat only at top. Next look at the little yellow things in the middle of the flower, and which, as I have told you, are all so many flowers; if the flower is sufficiently advanced, you will see some of them open in the middle and even cut into several parts. These are the monopetalous corollas..... This is enough to show you by the eye the possibility that all these small affairs, both white and yellow, may be so many distinct flowers, and this is a constant fact" (Quoted in Lindley's "Ladies' Botany," vol. i.)[374:1] But Rousseau does not mention one feature which I wish to describe to you, as I know few points in botany more beautiful than the arrangement by which the Daisy is fertilized. In the centre of each little flower is the style surrounded closely by the anthers. The end of the style is divided, but, as long as it remains below among the anthers, the two lips are closed. The anthers are covered, more or less, with pollen; the style has its outside surface bristling with stiff hairs. In this condition it would be impossible for the pollen to reach the interior (stigmatic) surfaces of the divided style, but the style rises, and as it rises it brushes off the pollen from the anthers around it. Its lips are closed till it has risen well above the whole flower, and left the anthers below; then it opens, showing its broad stigmatic surface to receive pollen from other flowers, and distribute the pollen it has brushed off, not to itself (which it could not do), but to other flowers around it. By this provision no flower fertilizes itself, and those of you who are acquainted with Darwin's writings will know how necessary this provision may be in perpetuating flowers. The Daisy not only produces double flowers, but also the curious proliferous flower called Hen and Chickens, or Childing Daisies, or Jackanapes on Horseback. These are botanically very interesting flowers, and though I, on another occasion, drew your attention to the peculiarity, I cannot pass it over in a paper specially devoted to the Daisy. The botanical interest is this: It is a well-known fact in botany, that all the parts of a plant—root, stem, flowers and their parts, thorns, fruits, and even the seeds, are only different forms of leaves, and are all interchangeable, and the Hen and Chickens Daisy is a good proof of it. Underneath the flowerhead of the Daisy is a green cushion, composed of bracts; in the Hen and Chickens Daisy some of these bracts assume the form of flowers, and are the chickens. If the plant is neglected, or does not like its soil, the chickens again become bracts.

The only other point in the botany of the Daisy that occurs to me is its geographical range. The old books are not far wrong when they say "it groweth everywhere." It does not, however, grow in the Tropics. In Europe it is everywhere, from Iceland to the extreme south, though not abundant in the south-easterly parts. It is found in North America very sparingly, and not at all in the United States. It is also by no means fastidious in its choice of position—by the river-side or on the mountain-top it seems equally at home, though it somewhat varies according to its situation, but its most chosen habitat seems to be a well-kept lawn. There it luxuriates, and defies the scythe and the mowing machine. It has been asserted that it disappears when the ground is fed by sheep, and again appears when the sheep are removed, but this requires confirmation. Yet it does not lend itself readily to gardening purposes. It is one of those—

Paradise Lost, iv, 240.

Under cultivation it becomes capricious; the sorts degenerate and require much care to keep them true. As to its time of flowering it is commonly considered a spring and summer flower; but I think one of its chief charms is that there is scarcely a day in the whole year in which you might not find a Daisy in flower.

I have now gone through something of the history, poetry, and botany of the Daisy, but there are still some few points which I could not well range under either of these three heads, yet which must not be passed over. In painting, the Daisy was a favourite with the early Italian and Flemish painters, its bright star coming in very effectively in their foregrounds. Some of you will recollect that it is largely used in the foreground of Van Eyck's grand picture of the "Adoration of the Lamb," now at St. Bavon's, in Ghent. In sculpture it was not so much used, its small size making it unfit for that purpose. Yet you will sometimes see it, both in the stone and wood carvings of our old churches. In heraldry it is not unknown. When Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, was about to marry Margaret of Flanders, he instituted an order of Daisies; and in Chifflet's Lilium Francicum (1658) is a plate of his arms, France and Flanders quarterly surrounded by a collar of Daisies. A family named Daisy bear three Daisies on their coat of arms. In an old picture of Chaucer, a Daisy takes the place in the corner usually allotted to the coat of arms in mediÆval paintings. It was assumed as an heraldic cognizance by St. Louis of France in honour of his wife Margaret; by the good Margaret of Valois, Queen of Navarre; by Margaret of Anjou, the unfortunate wife of our Henry VI.; while our Margaret, Countess of Richmond, mother of our Henry VII., and dear to Oxford and Cambridge as the foundress of the Margaret Professorships, and of Christ College in Cambridge, bore three Daisies on a green turf.

To entomologists the Daisy is interesting as an attractive flower to insects; for "it is visited by nine hymenoptera, thirteen diptera, three coleoptera, and two lepidoptera—namely, the least meadow-brown and the common blue butterflies."[377:1]

In medicine, I am afraid, the Daisy has so lost its virtues that it has no place in the modern pharmacopoeia: but in old days it was not so. Coghan says "of Deysies, they are used to be given in potions in fractures of the head and deep wounds of the breast. And this experience I have of them, that the juyce of the leaves and rootes of Deysies being put into the nosethrils purgeth the brain; they are good to be used in pottage."[377:2] Gerard says, "the Daisies do mitigate all kinds of paines, especially in the joints, and gout proceeding from a hot or dry humoure, if they be stamped with new butter, unsalted, and applied upon the pained place." Nor was this all. In those days, doctors prescribed according to the so-called "doctrines of signatures," i.e., it was supposed that Nature had shown, by special marks, for what special disease each plant was useful; and so in the humble growth of the little low-growing Daisy the doctors read its uses, and here they are. "It is said that the roots thereof being boyled in milk, and given to little puppies, will not suffer them to grow great."—Cole's Adam in Eden. One more virtue. Miss Pratt says that "an author, writing in 1696, tells us that they who wish to have pleasant dreams of the loved and absent, should put 'Dazy roots under their pillow.'"

On the English language, the Daisy has had little influence, though some have derived "lackadaisy" and "lackadaisical" from the Daisy, but there is, certainly, no connection between the words. Daisy, however, was (and, perhaps, still is) a provincial adjective in the eastern counties. A writer in "Notes and Queries" (2nd Series, ix. 261) says that Samuel Parkis, in a letter to George Chalmers, dated February 16, 1799, notices the following provincialisms: "Daisy: remarkable, extraordinary excellent, as 'She's a Daisy lass to work,' i.e., 'She is a good working girl.' 'I'm a Daisy body for pudding,' i.e., 'I eat a great deal of pudding.'"

And I must not leave the Daisy without noticing one special charm, that it is peculiarly the flower of childhood. The Daisy is one of the few flowers of which the child may pick any quantity without fear of scolding from the surliest gardener. It is to the child the herald of spring, when it can set its little foot on six at once, and it readily lends itself to the delightful manufacture of Daisy chains.

It is then the special flower of childhood, but we cannot entirely give it up to our children. And I have tried to show you that the humble Daisy has been the delight of many noble minds, and may be a fit subject of study even for those children of a larger growth who form the "Bath Field Club."

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