117. Compositae.—Composite Family.
Botanical name:
Herbaceous or woody plants, rarely shrubs, with the flowers in close heads on a common receptacle, and surrounded by a common imbricated involucre. Stamens 5, their anthers united into a tube surrounding the pistil. Flowers of two sorts, strap-shaped or ligulate, and tubular, and hence the family is divided into three tribes: Tubuliflorae (flowers tubular in all the perfect flowers, and ligulate in the marginal or ray-flowers), Liguliflorae (all the flowers of the head being strap-shaped, ligulate), and Labiatiflorae (with tubular flowers more or less labiate). Fruit an akene.
