Daisies

KM: On our walk to Papini, my eyes kept jumping from flower to flower. I was constantly amazed by each new color, shape, and detail of each vine, leaf, and bud. The more I walked, the more varieties I saw of the same type of plant. One in particular that stuck out to me was the daisy. Sure, we have daisies in America, but the ones I saw were unlike any other I have ever been privileged to experience. This particular set of daisies, to me, had personality. A daisy is not a single flower like a rose or an iris; it is instead a composite inflorescence, which means it is formed by many small flowers joined together. The ray flowers are located around the edge and have colored petals. The disc flowers are those in the center of the inflorescence and that will develop into seed. In these daisies, the center, yellow part of the flower, was huge, and seemed to take over the beauty of the flower. Any other daisy I have ever seen has been proportional, like a normal flower. These were fun to me, almost carefree. After further looking at the flower, I decided to research the different parts. While ray flowers are usually sterile, each disc flower within a daisy has all the sexual organs necessary for reproduction. The stamen is the male part of the disk that produces the pollen. Two other parts that may not be visible to the eye on this particular flower are the carpel, ovary, style, and stigma. The carpel is the female reproductive part that is usually located close to the stamen. The ovary is located within the carpel, the ovaries contain the egg cells that, after fertilization, will produce the embryos of the new generation. After looking further at the rose last week, and the daisy this week, I feel like I understand a little bit more about the process and parts of each.