Name derived from the Latin bellus «graceful». The genus includes annual or perennial herbaceous plants, with rosette of radical leaves, normally short, obovate-spatulate.
What we are used to calling flowers is actually an inflorescence, usually solitary, with tubular flowers on the central yellow disk, called flower head, and white or pink flower buds, arranged in a radius, circularly.
There are forms with one or two secondary inflorescences, but they are very rare.
Cultivated species:
Bellis perennis, euroasíatica, the common marguerite, from which the double-flowered forms are derived, used for the garden (Bellis perennís fl ore pleno). These cultivars vary in size and are more or less streaked in pink or red; in many of them the flower head is completely missing. Bellis rorundzfolia caerulescens, originally from Algeria, a small white daisy shaded in light blue; Bellis sylvestrís, Mediterranean, has a yellow flower head and bright red ligulate flowers.
Cultivation:
only double-flowered cultivars are grown, for borders and flower beds in gardens, as annuals, sowing them in July-August and planting them when the danger of frost has passed. Depending on the mildness or not of the climate, the blooming is winter or spring. The seeds are normally sold in a mixture; the “Chevreuse 'cultivar, with very large and double flowers, is often sold separately and there are also varieties, normally red, with tubular ligules.
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