Asterales is an order of dicotyledonous flowering plants that includes the large family Asteraceae known for composite flowers made of florets, and ten families related to the Asteraceae. While asterids in general are characterized by fused petals, composite flowers consisting of many florets create the false appearance of separate petals.
Lobelia is a genus of flowering plants comprising 415 species, with a subcosmopolitan distribution primarily in tropical to warm temperate regions of the world, a few species extending into cooler temperate regions. They are known generally as lobelias.
Campanula is the type genus of the Campanulaceae family of flowering plants. Campanula are commonly known as bellflowers and take both their common and scientific names from the bell-shaped flowers — campanula is Latin for "little bell".
The family Campanulaceae, of the order Asterales, contains nearly 2400 species in 84 genera of herbaceous plants, shrubs, and rarely small trees, often with milky sap. Among them are several familiar garden plants belonging to the genera Campanula (bellflower), Lobelia, and Platycodon (balloonflower). Campanula rapunculus and Codonopsis lanceolata are eaten as vegetables. Lobelia inflata, L. siphilitica and L. tupa and others have been used as medicinal plants. Campanula rapunculoides may be a troublesome weed, particularly in gardens, while Legousia spp. may occur in arable fields.
Polemonium, commonly called Jacob's ladders or Jacob's-ladders, is a genus of between 25 and 40 species of flowering plants in the family Polemoniaceae, native to cool temperate to arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere. One species also occurs in the southern Andes in South America. Many of the species grow at high altitudes, in mountainous areas. Most of the uncertainty in the number of species relates to those in Eurasia, many of which have been synonymized with Polemonium caeruleum.
Wahlenbergia is a genus of around 260 species of flowering plants in the family Campanulaceae. Plants in this genus are perennial or annual herbs with simple leaves and blue to purple bell-shaped flowers, usually with five petals lobes. Species of Wahlenbergia are found on all continents except North America, and on some isolated islands, but the greatest diversity occurs in the Southern Hemisphere.
Allium caeruleum is an ornamental bulbous plant of the onion genus, native to Central Asia. In these regions, it is found on dry slopes, plains, and steppes.
Campanula trachelium, the nettle-leaved bellflower, is a species of bellflower. It is a Eurasian blue wildflower native to Denmark and England and now naturalized in southeast Ireland. It is also found southward through much of Europe into Africa.
Burmeistera is a genus of flowering plants in the bellflower family, Campanulaceae. There are around 130 species distributed in Central and South America. This genus represents a rapid evolutionary radiation with species having diverged within only the last 2.6 million years.
Oxytropis is a genus of plants in the legume family. It includes over 600 species native to subarctic to temperate regions of North America and Eurasia. It is one of three genera of plants known as locoweeds, and are notorious for being toxic to grazing animals. The other locoweed genus is the closely related Astragalus. There are about 600 species, native to Eurasia and North America. Several species are native to the Arctic. These are hairy perennial plants which produce raceme inflorescences of pink, purple, white, or yellow flowers which are generally pea-like but have distinctive sharply beaked keels. The stems are leafless, the leaves being all basal. The plant produces legume pods containing the seeds.
Terana caerulea, commonly known as the cobalt crust fungus or velvet blue spread, is a saprobic crust fungus in the family Phanerochaetaceae. Usually found in warm, damp hardwood forests on the undersides of fallen logs and branches of deciduous trees, this unique fungus has been described as "blue velvet on a stick". This species was chosen as fungus of the year for 2009 by the German Mycological Society.
Sphenoclea is a genus of succulent erect annual herbs. They occur in damp habitats throughout the tropics.
Nemacladus is a genus of flowering plants in the bellflower family known generally as threadplants. Species are native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. These are annual herbs with very slender, sometimes threadlike, branching stems bearing small five-lobed flowers.
Cyanea is a genus of flowering plants in the family Campanulaceae that are endemic to Hawaii. The name Cyanea in Hawaiian is hāhā.
Legousia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Campanulaceae, native to Europe. Species in the genus used to be placed under genus Specularia along with plants in genera Triodanis and Heterocodon as well as some species in genus Campanula. However, the division has been confirmed evolutionarily comprehensive by a Campanulaceae phylogeny based on DNA molecular evidence.
Lapeirousia is a genus in the plant family Iridaceae. It is endemic to sub-Saharan Africa, about a third of the species occurring in fynbos.
Trachelium caeruleum, common name blue throatwort, is a species of flowering plant in the family Campanulaceae native to the Mediterranean, where its native range includes Algeria, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, and Sicily. It has also become naturalized in a few areas, including New Zealand, the Azores, and parts of mainland Europe.
Lapeirousia jacquinii is a species of flowering plant in the genus Lapeirousia. It is endemic to the Northern Cape and Western Cape of South Africa.
