Thursday, May 20, 2010

The Daisy Flower

It is a herbaceous plant with short creeping rhizomes and small rounded or spoon-shaped evergreen leaves 2–5 cm long, grows close to ground. The flowerheads are 2–3 cm in diameter, with white ray florebts (often tipped red) and yellow disc florets; they are produced on leafless stems 2–10 cm (rarely 15 cm) tall. The lawn daisy is a dicot.

It is thought that the name "daisy" is a corruption of "day's eye", because the whole head closes at night and opens in the morning. Chaucer called it "eye of the day." Daisy is also a common girl's name and is a nickname for girls named Margaret, after the French name for the oxeye daisy, marguerite.

It is not affected by mowing and is therefore often considered a weed on lawns, though many also value the appearance of the flowers. Several cultivars and hybrids have been selected with much larger flower heads up to 5–6 cm diameter and with light pink to purple-red ray florets. Bellis perennis has astringent properties and has been used in folk medicine. In ancient Rome, the surgeons who accompanied Roman legions into battle would order their slaves to pick sacks full of daisies in order to extract their juice. Bandages were soaked in this juice and would then be used to bind sword and spear cuts. Daisies have traditionally been used for making daisy chains in children's games.


Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_daisy

See Also : Flower Sydney, Flowers Philippines, Flowers Jamaica

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