The family Asteraceae, with the original name Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae were first described in the year 1740. The number of species in Asteraceae is rivaled only by the Orchidaceae, and which is the larger family is unclear as the quantity of extant species in each family is unknown.
Gundelia or tumble thistle is a low to high (20–100 cm) thistle-like perennial herbaceous plant with latex, spiny compound inflorescences, reminiscent of teasles and eryngos, that contain cream, yellow, greenish, pink, purple or redish-purple disk florets. It is assigned to the family Asteraceae. Flowers can be found from February to May. The stems of this plant dry-out when the seeds are ripe and break free from the underground root, and are then blown away like a tumbleweed, thus spreading the seeds effectively over large areas with little standing vegetation. This plant is native to the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle-East. Opinions differ about the number of species in Gundelia. Sometimes the genus is regarded monotypic, Gundelia tournefortii being a species with a large variability, but other authors distinguish up to nine species, differing in floret color and pubescence. Young stems are cooked and eaten in the Middle-East and are said to taste like a combination of artichoke and asparagus.
Symphyotrichum novae-angliae is a species of flowering plant in the aster family (Asteraceae) native to central and eastern North America. Commonly known as New England aster, hairy Michaelmas-daisy, or Michaelmas daisy, it is a perennial, herbaceous plant usually between 30 and 120 centimeters tall and 60 to 90 cm wide.
Kalimeris is a genus of plants in the family Asteraceae.
Canna indica, commonly known as Indian shot, African arrowroot, edible canna, purple arrowroot, Sierra Leone arrowroot, is a plant species in the family Cannaceae. It is native to much of South America, Central America, the West Indies, and Mexico. It is also naturalized in the southeastern United States, and much of Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Oceania.
Vateria indica, the white dammar, is a species of tree in the family Dipterocarpaceae. It is endemic to the Western Ghats mountains in India. It is threatened by habitat loss. It is a large canopy or emergent tree frequent in tropical wet evergreen forests of the low and mid-elevations.
Layia carnosa is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common name beach tidytips, or beach layia. It is endemic to California, where it lives in beach habitat. It is known from several areas of mostly fragmented coastal habitat, and it was listed as an endangered species in California. On March 31, 2022, the category was changed from endangered species to threatened species by the US Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service.
Lagophylla ramosissima is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is known by the common name branched hareleaf, or branched lagophylla. It is native to the western United States where it can be found in many types of habitat, especially in dry areas. This is an annual herb producing spindly, erect stems which are variable in height. The leaves on the lower part of the plant are up to 12 centimeters long and fall off the plant early on in the season. The upper leaves are smaller and have woolly, glandular surfaces. The inflorescence is sparsely flowered in flower heads which open in the evening and close early in the morning. Each small head has five short light yellow ray florets with lobed tips, and six yellow disc florets. The fruit is an achene a few millimeters long with no pappus.
Balsamorhiza sagittata is a North American species of flowering plant in the tribe Heliantheae of the family Asteraceae known by the common name Arrowleaf Balsamroot. Also sometimes called Oregon sunflower, it is widespread across western Canada and much of the western United States.
Ozothamnus ferrugineus, commonly known as tree everlasting, is a member of the genus Ozothamnus, of the Asteraceae family – one of the largest families of flowering plants in Australia. Native to the Australian states of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania, it forms an erect shrub or small tree between 2 and 3 metres in height.
Lessingia arachnoidea is a rare species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common name Crystal Springs lessingia. It is endemic to California, where it is known from a few occurrences in the vicinity of Crystal Springs Reservoir on the San Francisco Peninsula and southward to serpentine soil in Woodside. It may also exist in Sonoma County to the north. The plant grows in chaparral, scrub, grasslands and other local plant communities, on serpentine soils.
Nestotus stenophyllus is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common name narrowleaf mock goldenweed. It was previously known as Stenotus stenophyllus. It is native to the western United States, especially the inland Pacific Northwest and northern Great Basin, where it grows in sagebrush habitat usually in rocky soil.
Boltonia decurrens is a rare species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common names decurrent false aster and claspingleaf doll's daisy. It is native to the floodplains along the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers in the United States, where the habitat has been drastically altered, leading to its decline. The plant was once distributed across 400 kilometers of riverside forest from LaSalle, Illinois, to St. Louis, Missouri. As the rivers and riparian habitat alongside them have been developed, the plant's distribution has been fragmented into 40 to 43 separate populations. At one point it was thought to have been extirpated from Missouri, but a few populations have been located near St. Louis since the mid-1980s. Despite having declined over time, several populations of the plant contain many thousands of individuals. Populations vary depending on the amount and duration of flooding that occurs in the area each year. The plant is a federally listed threatened species.
Artemisia frigida is a widespread species of flowering plant in the aster family, which is known as the sunflower family. It is native to Europe, Asia, and much of North America. In parts of the north-central and northeastern United States it is an introduced species.
Pluchea indica is a species of flowering plant in the aster family, Asteraceae. Its common names include Indian camphorweed, Indian fleabane, and Indian pluchea. It is native to parts of Asia and Australia, and it is widespread in the Pacific Islands as an introduced and often invasive species.
Sericocarpus rigidus is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common name Columbian whitetop aster. It is native to the Pacific Northwest of North America, where it is known from southern Vancouver Island in British Columbia south along the coast to Washington and Oregon.
Solidago verna is a species of flowering plant in the aster family known by the common names springflowering goldenrod and spring goldenrod. It is native to North Carolina and South Carolina in the United States.
Pityopsis graminifolia is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common names grass-leaved golden-aster and narrowleaf silkgrass. It is native to the southeastern United States, occurring as far north as Ohio and Maryland.
Balduina uniflora, commonly called oneflower honeycombhead, savannah honeycombhead or oneflower balduina, is a North American species of plants in the sunflower family. It is native to the southeastern United States. It is the type species of the genus Balduina.
Felicia is a genus of small shrubs, perennial or annual herbaceous plants, with 85 known species, that is assigned to the daisy family. Like in almost all Asteraceae, the individual flowers are 5-merous, small and clustered in typical heads, and which are surrounded by an involucre of, in this case between two and four whorls of, bracts. In Felicia, the centre of the head is taken by yellow, seldom whitish or blackish blue disc florets, and is almost always surrounded by one single whorl of mostly purple, sometimes blue, pink, white or yellow ligulate florets and rarely ligulate florets are absent. These florets sit on a common base and are not individually subtended by a bract. Most species occur in the Cape Floristic Region, which is most probably the area where the genus originates and had most of its development. Some species can be found in the eastern half of Africa up to Sudan and the south-western Arabian peninsula, while on the west coast species can be found from the Cape to Angola and one species having outposts on the Cameroon-Nigeria border and central Nigeria. Some species of Felicia are cultivated as ornamentals and several hybrids have been developed for that purpose.
