Narrative

Composite or Daisy or Aster Family (Compositae or Asteraceae) is a huge family of perhaps over 20,000 species. Sometimes the Chicory portion of this family is treated as a separate family. Here the Chicory group is treated as the most advanced tribe in the Composite Family. (The tribes are as suggested by Lawrence in his book, Taxonomy of Vascular Plants.)

Many species of this family are characterized by large flower heads composed of many very small flowers and leaves that appear as petals (bracts). These cause the large flower heads to appear as a single large flower. The center of the flower of a common sunflower contains a multitude of tiny flowers.

To facilitate study of this large and complicated family, the Composites are usually broken down into different tribes:

1 - Vernoninae
2 - Eupatorieae
3 - Astereae Asters and Goldenrods, etc.
4 - Inuleae
5 - Heliantheae Sunflowers, etc.
6 - Helenieae
7 - Anthemideae
8 - Senecioneae
11 - Cynareae Thistles
13 - Cichoriacea Dandelions

There are over 20,000 species arranged in about 1,300 genera in this family.
As of 1994, there were about 2,700 species in almost 400 genera either native to or established in greater North America, including Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Hawaii, and Greenland.

Taxonomy

References