Daisies are among the most well-known and popular flowers of all, as well they might be: who can resist the simple, cheerful, sunny faces and delicate petals of a fresh bouquet of them? Charming harbingers of spring, daisies will bring a smile to anyone's day.

Yellow Daisies In A Basket

The word "daisy" is thought to have evolved from the Old English term "day's eye", a reference to the flower's center, surrounded as it is by lashes of petals, and implying that it opens by day and closes as night (although this isn't really the case with most of the flowers that we call daises). In fact, because the flower looked so much like an eye, daisies were once thought to cure eye problems. Botanically, daisies belong to the very large family of plants known as Asteraceae (formerly Compositae), or "composite flowers". The name derives from the fact that a daisy inflorescence is actually composed of two different types of flowers. The flattened, bull's-eye center portion is crowded with perhaps hundreds of tiny, so-called "disc" florets; these in turn are surrounded by the "ray" florets that we call the petals. It is this botanical feature which links all daisies and daisy-like flowers, including asters, sunflowers, gerbera daisies, black-eyed Susans, chrysanthemums, etc.

Daisies have long been associated with youth and purity....hence the phrase "fresh as a daisy". Wedding bouquets with daisies would certainly be appropriate for a young bride or her attendants. In Victorian times, when hidden meanings were associated with many flowers (see our June 2003 FSN Newsletter about "The Symbolic Meanings of Flowers"), daisies signified innocence and gentleness. Perhaps it is these qualities which makes them such good fortune-tellers ("...she loves me, she loves me not...")! Today of course, we often think of sending daisies whenever we want to cheer someone up.

The flowers which are most often sold as daisies in modern flower shops are usually a daisy-flowered type of spray chrysanthemum, or "daisy pompon" as it's known in the trade. Occurring with several flowers to the stem, these daisy pompons are sturdier and longer lasting than traditional Marguerite daisies, and they're available in a wide range of colors and sizes. Gerbera daisies, originally native to South Africa, have become enormously popular in recent years, and they're being used in everything from casual vase arrangements to sophisticated wedding bouquets. Hybridizers have succeeded in developing gerbera daisies in a tremendous variety of sizes, textures, and colors; there is a gerbera which will coordinate with virtually any decorating scheme or wedding theme.

As always, your local professional florist can guide you in selecting the right daisies for the right occasion. Buy them for yourself or for someone else...no one could ever send a bad message with daisies. Just please don't eat them! But that's a tale for another day.