Bob, I made a mistake. Astereae is a TRIBE of the family Asteraceae, not a subfamily. (I got my subfamilies and tribes mixed up). It contains many of the yellow-flowered composites we were talking about, including Solidago, Heterotheca, Pityopsis, Chrysopsis, etc.). It also contains composites that are not yellow, including Aster and Boltonia. Another tribe that contains a lot of yellow-flowered composites is the Heliantheae, which contains Helianthus and Bidens among others.
Both of the tribes are in the subfamily that produces disc flowers or both disc and ray flowers. The other subfamily produces only ray flowers (e.g., dandelions (Taraxacum) and hawkweeds (Hieracium)). Sorry for the confusion. Steve Brewer At 4:58 PM +0000 9/21/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >I have no idea why, or if, yellow flowers predominate in the fall >but I would like to ask the taxonomists among us to clarify a point >from Steve Brewer's posting. > > > > Steve refers to the "Astereae" as a subfamily of composites. It is >my understanding that Asteraceae is now the accepted name for >what was once known as the composite family (Compositae). > > > >Bob Mowbray > >Tropical Forest Ecologist > >Volunteer Docent, U. S. Botanic Garden > >-------------- Original message from Steve Brewer ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: -------------- > >[snip] >a likely reason why most of the composites in the Astereae > >[snip] > > > >result of a phylogenetic constraint within the Astereae subfamily of >composites, which represents a large proportion of the plants >flowering right now in the East. >[snip] -- Department of Biology PO Box 1848 University of Mississippi University, Mississippi 38677-1848 Brewer web page - http://home.olemiss.edu/~jbrewer/ FAX - 662-915-5144 Phone - 662-915-1077
