PROMINENT FAMILIES 
With the Composite family it is important to be familiar. 
The Dandelion, the Daisy, and the Thistle are examples of this 
family. Here we fail to find the sepals, petals, stamens, and 
pistils according to our diagram of a flower because what appears 
to be a single flower is really made up of a great many little 
flowers or florets. To realize this, pull out what appears to be 
the petal of a Dandelion (Fig. 25). Its base will be found rolled 
up and from its centre will be seen to rise a little pistil, sur- 
rounded by a tube made up of the coalescing stamens. 
Fig. 
A DANDELION FLORET 
The apparent petal, then, is the flattened corolla of a tiny 
floret, of which the Dandelion contains perhaps two hundred. 
The collection of florets is called a flower-head. Some or all 
of the separate flowers making up this flower-head may be 
tubular, as in the yellow centre (disk) of the Daisy, or their 
corollas may all appear like single petals (ligulate), as above 
described.^ The disk florets are oftenest " perfect," the ray- 
flowers pistillate, not infrequently " neutral," in the latter 
1 In the classification found in Britton and Brown, those with all florets 
ligulate are included in the Chicory family, those with disks in the Thistle 
family. xx 
