daisies

   The daisy features in a light-hearted *love divination, the petals being plucked off singly with the words 'He loves me, he loves me not' till all are gone, the last one deciding the issue. Daisy-chains are made by slitting the stem with a thumb-nail, threading another through it, and repeating the process; since modern lawns have few weeds, the game is getting rarer. It was said that spring had truly arrived if one could set one's foot on seven (or nine, or twelve) daisies at once (Vickery, 1995: 100-2).