Asteroideae is a subfamily from the family Asteraceae which are often shrubby plants found all over the world. There are about 1,135 genera and 17,200 species within this subfamily with Helichrysum (500-600) and Artemisia (550) being the most abundant genera. Asteroideae also is said to have begun approximately 46-36.5 million years ago (Huang et al, 201Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).6)[1].

Tribes

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This subfamily is composed of 21 tribes that are broken into 3 super tribes: Senecioneae, Asterodae, and Helianthodae. Senecioneae contains about 120 genera and 3200+ species that are found in more temperate areas [2]. Asterodae contains many economically important plants such as: the Chrysanthemums, common daisy, and the asters. The third super tribe is the Helianthodae which is the largest of the three containing 16 of the 21 tribes [3].

Common Characteristics

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This family will often have radiate style heads but some could have discoid or disciform. They contain ray florets that are three lobed and are also considered perfect flower implying that it is bisexual. Many contain stigmatic surfaces that are separated by two marginal bands and terminal sterile appendages with sweeping hairs [4].

Uses

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The subfamily Asteroideae has many genera within the tribes that have economic uses. The Helianthus tuberosus (Jerusalem artichoke), Helianthus annuus (sunflower), Guizotia abyssinica (niger seed) are all used as oil seed crops. Artemisia dracunculus (tarragon) is used for culinary herb and Parthenium argentatum (guayule) is a rubber source. Some of the other genera are used as ornamentals; those are Dendranthema spp. (chrysanthemum), Callistephus, Cosmos, Tagetes (marigold), and many others [5].

  1. ^ Huang, C.-H.; Zhang, C.; Liu, M; Hu, Y.; Gao, T; Ma, H (2016). "Multiple polyploidization events across Asteraceae with two nested events in the early history revealed by nuclear phylogenomics". Mol. Biol. Evol. 33: 2820-2835.
  2. ^ Cassini, J. "Asteraceae Marinov tribe Senecioneae". Flora of North America.
  3. ^ Panero, J.L; Crozier, B.S. "Asteraceae". Sunflowers, daisies. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  4. ^ Lindley, J. "The Vegetable Kingdom". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  5. ^ Murrell, Z.E (2010). Vascular Plant Taxonomy. Kendall Hunt Publishing Compant.