Another of our occasional interviews.
What's the point of you?
Interviewer: Let’s be honest. You’re everywhere. Lawns, paths, field edges. People step on you daily. What exactly is the point of you?
Daisy: Survival, mainly. I recommend it.
Interviewer: You don’t seem very ambitious.
Daisy: On the contrary. I have conquered half the temperate world by looking harmless.
Interviewer: Your Latin name is Bellis perennis. Care to translate?
Daisy: With pleasure. Bellis means pretty. Your species decided that. Perennis means everlasting. That part I can prove.
Interviewer: People treat you as a lawn weed.
Daisy: Lawns are just overgrazed pasture with better public relations. I was thriving there centuries before someone invented striped mowing.
Interviewer: You do look rather simple.
Daisy: That’s because you’re not paying attention.
Interviewer: Explain.
Daisy: What you call a flower is actually dozens of flowers working together. The yellow centre is a cluster of tiny disc florets. The white “petals” are ray florets. I’m not simple. I’m efficient.
Interviewer: So you’re a collective.
Daisy: Exactly. A floral committee meeting with excellent turnout.
Interviewer: Your English name comes from “day’s eye”, doesn’t it?
Daisy: Correct. I open with the light and close when the sun goes down.
Interviewer: Office hours?
Daisy: Something like that. Though unlike humans I don’t need coffee to start the day.
Interviewer: Children make chains out of you.
Daisy: I’m aware. Occupational hazard. At least they notice me.
Interviewer: Final question. Why are you everywhere?
Daisy: Because I stay low, tolerate trampling, flower whenever the opportunity arises, and scatter seeds with cheerful indifference.
Interviewer: So the point of you is…?
Daisy: To quietly outlast everything that thinks it’s more important.
The daisy has a point.