For my day job I study daisies. There are an awful lot of them - close to 1 in 10 flowering plants on earth belongs to the family, but for all that diversity, a lot of them look pretty similar and familiar. This is despite growing on all habitable continents (and even the one continent that is no longer habitable, Antarctica, has the worlds oldest daisy fossils dating from about 70 million years ago!). They can be small herbs or chunky trees, are happy hanging out in deserts or on mountain tops, and are just about everywhere. Which is really not such bad thing - most are quite pretty, and people have been growing them for decoration for more than 4,000 years. Sunflowers and dandelions are daisies, and species and varieties of all colors spill out of gardens everywhere. The shades might be different, sizes vary, the number of petals on a flower might be more or less, and how many flowers each plant has may be different, but many many daisies all over the world look suspiciously similar. This can be frustrating when you are trying to work out which, of the more than 24,000 species, the one in your neighbors garden might be - and the phrase "ugh, not another DYD" is something passed on down from botanist to botanist - Damn Yellow Daisy!
But why *do* so many of them look alike? Do daisies just lack imagination? There are plenty of possible shapes out there, why not experiment? Well, many species have, but there are reason that a nice open, flat, happy flower might be advantageous: they are very pollinator friendly. The big flat bright flower with a yellow center makes a very easy target for any passing insect. The wide petals make a handy perch for landing on. And the way daisies assemble their flowers makes this the easiest template - more on daisy architecture another day! This is just one of many things daisies have done to help themselves get by very well in the world, and if numbers are your measure of success then daisies really are one of the most over-achieving groups of plants on the planet. And the fact that they have managed to wander all around the world is a testament to how resilient and adaptable they are. So next time you walk past a daisy smiling up at you, maybe give it a smile back :) *Top pictures, left to right: Grindelia paludosa (North America), Brachyscome scapigera (Australia), Madia elegans (North America), Stephanomeria cichoriaceae (North America) - all credits: Bort Edwards
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