A Composite World

 As I headed down my driveway for an errand at the college, I noticed a few flowers blooming at the sides.  They were all weeds, technically, and I knew a weed eater would arrive before long.  So, I got out to take a few photos.  I noticed that all of them were in the same family, Family Asteraceae, formerly called Compositae.  That made an impression.  As I continued on toward the college, I was musing about what I might say about the preponderance of mid-summer blooms in the composite family and what a composite actually is.  I've written about that subject before, but here's a little refresher.  A so-called flower in this family is actually a cluster of flowers on a kind of platform.  The larger ones, like sunflowers, are easier to explain.  The central part of a sunflower is usually brown and is made up of hundreds of individual flowers that are called "disc" flowers.  Each one may produce a seed.  The so-called petals are actually individual "ray" flowers.  Over the eons, some composites have lost their ray flowers and all that remains is the disc.  A local example of that would be the Tansy.  Note my previous post about Ambush Bugs.  Other composites, over time, have lost their disc flowers and retain only ray flowers.  Why they are consider to still be a part of the composite family is a technical matter involving DNA, embryology, and other evolutionary concepts.

 So, the first from my driveway collection is the Chicory.  Next is what is usually called Mountain Dandelion, Agoseris sp., which looks like a more streamlined version of our lawn dandelion.  The former is a native and the latter is an import from Europe.

 Then there were a few Ox-eye Daisies, also an European import, which goes by several different common names in the USA, differing by region.  It's scientific name is Chrysanthemum leucanthemum, so you can guess what one of its closest relatives is.  The daisies have adjusted pretty well to America so they're seldom considered invasive, or even weeds, the latter terms usually reserved for plants most people don't like.

 When I got to the college, after thinking about composites during the drive, I decided to carry the camera up to the library and look for photo ops along the way.  One of my favorite composites is growing near the library entrance.  It's Rabbitbrush.  Here's a photo of that beauty with a bonus feature, a Thread-waisted Wasp.  Soon these plants will be covered with Skippers, an attractive kind of butterfly that resembles a moth.

 This next one, a tiny kind of daisy, might be Chamomile.  I'll need to check on that. 

 The next one I saw, one of my favorites, is the Gum Plant.  Around Oakland Camp and on most roadsides in American Valley, these are still blooming or have already gone to seed, whereas this cluster at the college hasn't yet bloomed.  Soon the ray flowers will poke through that wad of gum.

 The California Thistle gets lots of people irritated, even though it produces very colorful flowers.  Just don't walk through a dense patch of them wearing short shorts.  And remember, artichokes are thistles.  Thistles are good!

 Common on Plumas County roadsides at this time is Goldenrod.  There are several species.  For some people, it's a threat of runny noses and sneezing.  Fortunately, I'm not afflicted, so I can enjoy the beauty of the flowers.  Both this and the Rabbitbrush warrant close-up views.  The individual "flowers" are actually like tiny daisies or sunflowers, each in turn consisting of bunches of disc and ray flowers.  It's almost a composite of composites.  

 Last, another flower that consists of a cluster of composites, the Yarrow.  I often tell my nature-hiking guests that it's named after Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary.  Most seem to believe it.

Two wide-spread composites I left off this post are the Star Thistle and Trail Plant.  Star Thistle was left off because I thought including one thistle was pushing it, and including two might cause me to lose some followers.  AS for the Trail Plant, the flowers are so tiny that I can't get a good picture with my limited camera equipment.  Same for the Mugwort which is also blooming all over American Family.  In fact it's flowers are the same color as the leaves and stems so it's hard to notice when it's blooming.