The guys and gals circle and join hands, fluff out their colorful petticoats. The crew in the center clump tightly together to form an inviting and nutritious landing pad for pollinators.

The Composite Family has over 23,000 species and is considered the most recently evolved group (along with the orchids, I would add). Getting together and cooperating seems to be a successful life hack. Composite flowers are composed of ray flowers on the periphery (the frilly petticoat) and disc flowers in the center (the abundantly juicy pollinator landing area). They are the Asteraceae Family, whose members turn prairies into sunshine all through the heart of summer. They attract and nurture all manner of pollinators. Some common examples are sunflowers, Echinacea species, zinnias, asters, dandelions, bidens, sneezeweed, thistles, and on and on.

There are three kinds of composite flowers:

• Heads composed of only ray flowers (dandelion, wild lettuce).
• Heads composed of only disc flowers (eupatorium, thistles, burdock).
• Heads composed of both ray and disc flowers (sunflowers, asters, black-eyed Susans).

The individual flowers within the disc of a composite can be described as follows: The stamens (male parts) usually fuse together by their anthers to form a tube through which the style (the ovary’s neck) passes up and out. The style (branching) possesses little bumps which are the stigma. The ovary sits beneath the disc platform. It appears that the individual flowers do not mature all at once. Pollinators distribute pollen to the stigma as they gather nectar. The nectaries are typically found at the base of the stamens, but can also be located on the petals, sepals, pistils, styles, and ovaries, depending on the species.

Near the end of the golden composite summer, the blooming of the New England asters marks the beginning, for me, of the blues and the purples and even pinks of fall. Their petals are unbelievably thin and delicate, but their bright yellow centers promise more summers to come.