THE COMPOSITE FAMILY 



Compositm 



A flower-head of the Composite Family, the 

 group to which most of our autumn species be- 

 long, is really not one flower but a colony of 

 flowers. This colony is circular in shape, its 

 edge protected and usually decorated, all its ar- 

 rangements orderly, and each individual blossom 

 has allotted space and definite time for its work. 

 The results measured by seed production are so 

 effective that the Composite Family far out- 

 strips in number of recorded species any other 

 floral group in the world. 



The illustration, a photograph of a Garden 

 Sunflower, gives very clearly the structure of 

 this flower group and the arrangement of the 

 florets therein. A flower-head is a central disk 

 surrounded by a row of rays, each a separate 

 and distinct floret, consisting of a corolla with or 

 without stamens or pistils. The Sunflower ray- 

 floret has neither. Upon the disk are several 



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