Very ry Important Pla Plant
In its native wild form, this plant either makes gardeners jump
for joy or fume in frustration, yet its highly bred incarnation always draws gasps of admiration from both parties. The wild bellis daisy is a common ‘weed’ of most lawns in the country, bursting into flower to produce flurries of white daisies, often startlingly contrasted against that other despised lawn weed, the dandelion. Bellis perennis is a small,
herbaceous perennial with short, creeping rhizomes producing small, spoonshaped leaves in a flat rosette that sit just below the cutting blades of the lawnmower, allowing it to thrive. It has to be admitted that, when flowering over extensive areas of parkland,
the combination creates a dramatic springtime spectacle. Although native to most of Europe, it has become naturalised in most temperate regions. It has long been cultivated as a pot herb and the young leaves, flower buds and petals can be eaten raw in salads or cooked. Roman surgeons also used the astringent juice to soak the bandages used to bind the wounds of soldiers in battle. The petals may seem pure white, but they often have a pink tinge, which has been exploited by nurserymen and breeders over many years to create the white to pink, single, semi or double-flowered versions that we see in cottage gardens and municipal plantings, often as colourful underplanting to mid- spring bulbs, such as muscari and tulips.