KNOWING THE PLANT FAMILIES - ASTERACEAE

• The family name means star-like referring to the shape of flowers of most members.

• Plants are usually flowering, annual herbs, sometimes creepers, leafy vegetables (like lettuce), shrubs (like Pluchea indica) or trees (Vernonia arborea)

• Leaves may be simple or compound, usually with serrated margins and hariy but sometimes smooth and glabrous (as in Curtain Creeper - Vernonia elliptica)

• Composite flowers, with many florets bunched together on green bracts. Presence of Disc and Ray florets in most cases with disc florets borne on a floral head or capitulum, flanked by petal like ray florets. Though some species may have only Disc florets (as in Vernonia and Cyanthillium sp.) or only Ray florets (as in sub-family - Cichorioideae Or Chicory sub-family)

• Fruits are achenes (single-seeded) with pappus and dispersed by wind. Seeds may contain oil as in sunflower or lettuce seeds.

• Some medicinally important plants are : Soldier's woundwort (Achillea millefolium) and False daisy (Eclipta alba )