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Meadow Muses - July 2007
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| Monica |
Brigid |
Monica Johnson and Brigid Campbell
look at the ever-changing flora and fauna in our beautiful wildflower
meadow which is named in memory of Reg Smith, founder of the Hawk Conservancy
Trust.
READY-MADE BOUQUETS – July 2007
The Daisy Family
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| Common Daisy |
Whether you are in the wilds of Hampshire or Namaqualand, your
own back garden or Reg’s Meadow, the odds are that you
will be surrounded by flowers that are instantly recognisable
as belonging to the Daisy family – Asteraceae,
as botanists call it. But until not very long ago, the family
was known as Compositae, for the interesting reason
that their flowers are indeed compound. Each “flower”
is a cluster of a large number of tiny flowers growing in one
head – a sort of ready-made bouquet, if you like.
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| Common Daisy |
Senecio – cultivated |
The plants of this family typically produce one or both of
two different types of flower. Each fulfils all the practical
requirements of a flower, which is that it contains the sexual
organs of the plant: pollen-bearing male stamens and a female
ovary surmounted by a sticky stigma to which pollen sticks
so as to fertilise the ovule and create a seed. A flower need
in fact only contain one or the other (see June 2006 Meadow
Muses on “ Funny Flowers”).
The reproductive organs are not so easy to see on the humble
Common Daisy, but are more obvious on Senecio, a plant you
may have in your own garden.
The first type of flower is called a “disk floret”
and consists of very little more than this, with a small cup
surrounding it. The second type is called a “ray floret”
and has in addition one petal, often long and narrow, brightly
coloured, and sometimes of quite a complex shape.
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| Ox-eye Daisy |
To see how this works let’s look at a typical daisy –
an Ox-eye Daisy. This has the imposing and contradictory scientific
name Chrysanthemum leucanthemum, which in Greek means
“Golden flower white flower.” It is closely related
to our garden chrysanthemum, which is descended from a yellow
wild ancestor, hence the name.
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| Ox-eye Daisy Bracts |
An Ox-eye daisy clearly shows that it has a centre, called the
disk, made up of tiny yellow disk florets. Around the outside
is a single row of white ray florets. Turn the flower-head over
and you will see that it has what look like sepals, the outside
of the bud of a typical flower, all round its base which is
slightly swollen. The swollen area is called a receptacle, and
the “sepals” are bracts, which are modified leaves.
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| Pineapple Weed |
Tansy |
This pattern, of a central disk surrounded by a single line
of rays, is very common in the family, both in wild and cultivated
plants, including Michaelmas daisies, asters, pyrethrums, rudbeckias,
and many others. But not every sort of daisy has both. Some
daisies only have disk florets. The commonest wild one is the
little plant often known as Pineapple Weed, because it smells
of pineapple and its green flower-heads look like tiny pineapples.
It is properly known as Rayless Mayweed and is closely related
to the Scentless Mayweed, with conventional yellow and white
flowers, that is found occasionally in the meadow. Tansy is
another, and so is the garden shrub Santolina.
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| Dandelion |
Goat's Beard |
Rough Hawkbit |
Much more common are other daisies that have only ray florets
and are essentially "double". These include most of the yellow-flowered
daisies such as Dandelion, Hawkweeds, Goat's-beard, Rough Hawkbit
(the commonest yellow daisy in the meadow - easily mistaken
for a dandelion, and its scientific name Leontodon
in Greek means "lion's tooth"), and Ox-tongues. These at least
look like daisies, with circular, flattish flower-heads.
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| Yarrow |
Mugwort |
Finally there are the daisies that don’t look like any
of these. Two are especially notable in the meadow. One is Yarrow,
which has flat heads of small, 5-petalled flowers and could
be mistaken for a plant of the Carrot family. The other is Mugwort,
which has tall spikes of tiny pinkish-green flowers, and is
closely related to several garden plants such as Southernwood.
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| Thistledown |
Winged Seed |
Many, but not all, daisies have winged seeds – thistledown,
or dandelion clocks – which enable them to spread their
seeds using the wind. |
Featured Plants – Edible Daisies
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| Globe Artichoke |
The daisy family is not commonly thought of as including
food plants, but this would be wrong. Some important food
plants belong to this family, especially lettuce, chicory
(which grows wild in Britain and has once been recorded in
the meadow), globe artichokes – which are just enormous
thistles – and Jerusalem artichokes, which have nothing
to do with a city in the Holy Land. The name is a corruption
of the French word “girasole” which means “sunflower,
and the tubers are indeed from a sunflower. In addition some
of the plants are aromatic and used as flavouring: tansy,
tarragon, wormwood (used in absinthe and vermouth), and manzanilla
(the sherry is thought to smell of it). Dandelion roots have
been roasted and used for a coffee substitute, its leaves
are eaten in salad and used as a diuretic (hence the old name
“pissabed”, French “pisse-en-lit”).
Chicory flowers are blue, the only wild blue-flowered member
of this family. Its roots, dried and ground, are traditionally
used to flavour coffee, adding a bitterness to the basic flavour.
Lettuce has been an important foodstuff from ancient times,
known for over 6000 years. The ancient Egyptians held lettuce
sacred to the fertility god Min, and it was believed to be
a powerful aphrodisiac, as well as a contraceptive! Paintings
depicting it were found there in tombs from 4500BC. The Romans
started their banquets with lettuce, to enhance the appetite,
and are thought to have introduced the vegetable to Britain.
Lettuce has sedative properties and has been used traditionally
as a sleep aid, as well as to treat dropsy, colic and coughs.
So you see, it isn’t only wildlife that eats the daisies.....!
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