Asters And Composites (Asterales)

This group gathers Flowering Plants subcategory members belonging to the order Asterales, overwhelmingly the daisy or sunflower family Asteraceae (Compositae), the second-largest family of flowering plants, instantly recognizable by its composite flower head, a dense cluster of many small individual florets packed together and often ringed by larger, petal-like ray florets so the whole head reads to a pollinator as a single large flower. It spans garden favorites such as the sunflower, dandelion, chrysanthemum and daisy, aromatic and medicinal wormwoods and mugworts of the genus Artemisia, alpine specialists such as edelweiss and the Hawaiian silverswords, and everyday vegetables and weeds such as lettuce and burdock. The family's ecological success is closely tied to this flower-head strategy, which lets a plant offer a pollinator many small rewards in one visit rather than a single large one.