Hi All,
This is an understandable point of confusion. Basically, by fiat some plant
families have two names (International Code of Botanic Nomenclature). This
includes the Compositae, which is a synonym for the Asteraceae. Also
included are families such as the Graminiae (Poaceae), Palmae (Arec
Hi,
There's an interesting little blurb about this issue in the new book The
Nature Handbook by Ernest Williams. He says that the predominance of white
and yellow flowers in the spring, and all season in some alpine areas, is
due to predominance of color-blind pollinators, such as flies, at those
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 w
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
