I know of no plant which dresses up its flowers more cleverly, and cheats the public more successfully, than this innocent-looking daisy; for not only does it deceive boys and girls, but many of the grown-up people who love flowers, and who think they know something about them, never guess how they have been fooled the daisy. Indeed, some of them will hardly believe you when you tell them that when they pick what they call a daisy, they pick not one, but a great many flowers; and they are still more surprised when they learn that not only the yellow center of the daisy is composed of a quantity of little tube-shaped blossoms, but that what they take to be a circle of narrow white flower leaves is really a circle of flowers, each white strap being a separate blossom. I dare not try to tell you how many separate blossoms you would find if you picked to pieces a daisy and counted all its flowers,—all the yellow ones in the center, and all the white outside ones,—but you would find a surprisingly large number. [Illustration: FIG. 266] [Illustration: FIG. 267] The picture above (Fig. 266) shows you a daisy cut in two, and next you have one of the white outer flowers (Fig. 267). This flower, as we must call it, has a pistil, but no stamens. The pollen is brought by flies from the yellow central flowers to this pistil. [Illustration: FIG. 268] Here (Fig. 268) you see a picture of one of those yellow flowers which have both stamens and pistil inside its tube. If you children once make yourselves well acquainted with the make-up of the daisy, seeing with your own bright eyes (not believing it just because I tell you it is so) that there are many little flowers where most people think they see only one big one, you will never forget it as long as you live; and you will know something that many of the big people about you do not know. Some day while walking across the fields I think you will enjoy surprising them by pulling to pieces a daisy, and explaining to them this favorite flower trick. [Illustration: Decoration] ROBIN’S PLANTAIN, GOLDEN-ROD, AND ASTER Along the roadsides, in the month of May, grows a flower which you children call a blue daisy. This has the yellow center of the field daisy; but the narrow outer flowers which surround the yellow center are not white, they are blue. The real name of this flower is “robin’s plantain.” It is not a daisy, though it belongs to the same big family. Here, too, the yellow center is made up of many little tube-shaped flowers. [Illustration: FIG. 269] Later in the year the fields are white and purple with beautiful asters (Fig. 269). It is easy to see that these asters are own cousins to robin’s plantain. Their flower heads are put together in the same way, and many of the asters wear the same blue or purple dress (Fig. 269).