February 2016 Calendar: Daisy

February: Daisy

Tiny Pretty but Stubborn

Bellis perennis
Order: Asterales
Family: Asteraceae
Genus: Bellis

habitat: lawns, short grasslands, meadows
distribution: throughout the British isles

Daisy, the name is so common that most of people know the pretty white flower.  They grow mainly in lawns, short grasslands and meadows.  It's very hardy and tend to make colonies.  Our lawn is occupied more and more by daisy, and the grass is receding...

Though the view of the flowering in a grassland is beautiful.

They start blooming already in February here in the south east Wales.  (Another white spring flower, snowdrop, shows its beautiful naive flower in January.  Many spring flowers are getting to bloom earlier than before, maybe partly because of the climate change?)

You would probably make a daisy chain as a child (or even nowadays?) at least once.  The tiny pretty white flowers spread everywhere and tempting to pick.  I think we deserve to picke them up as it's not thought to be an endangered spices.  Though, I'd like to just watch young tender flowers this month.

Cicely Mary Barker (1895-1973) described daisy flower as baby.  The daisy fairy drawn by her is a toddler girl, which suits the image of daisy.  But, contrast to the appearance, daisy is very strong and stubborn.

The Song of the Daisy Fairy

Come to me and play with me

I'm the babies' flower;

Make a necklace gay with me,

Spend the whole long day with me,

Till the sunset hour.

I must say Good-night, you know,

Till tomorrow's playtime;

Close my petals tight, you know,

Shut the red and white, you know,

Sleeping till the daytime.

(from Flower Fairies of the Spring by Cicely Mary Barker, The Complete Book of the Flower Fairies, Warne, 2002)