…in the family Asteraceae

one things i’ve learned after six years of doing STILL blog is just how large the Asteraceae family of flowers is–asters, daisies, sunflowers, dahlias, zinnias, dandelions, and even thistles. according to wiki, there are 32,913 species. it is rivaled only by Orchidaceae which supposedly has 28,000 species. you can pretty much assume that any mulit-petaled composite flowering plant is in the asteraceae family and you’d probably be right. i was reminded of this recently, when i heard about a friend of a friend who had a child through sperm donor. she just recently found out that her daughter has over 50 half-siblings living in the Twin Cities. they all got together recently for a family reunion. the twin cities are a mid-sized metroploitan area (approx. 3M people). if those 50 siblings, all have on average 2 kids, then in only twenty years the chances of falling in love with a distant cousin get pretty high. i wonder if sperm banks are taking all that into consideration. i mean, it won’t take long before there are 32, 913 cousins of Mr. “Tall, Athletic, and Dark-Haired with IQ over 120” in the Twin Cities alone.

pale purple chrysanthemum flowers