The Asteraceae were once called the Compositae (as this family is called in the 1951 "Arizona Flora" and other older flora). Some flora break the Asteraceae into subfamilies or "tribes". I thought that a first step towards finding my way with the Asteraceae might be understanding these "tribes", but this hasn't worked out as I hoped, as you will learn.
Another aspect of dealing with these plants is taking flowers apart and understanding some unique aspect of Asteraceae flowers. It turns out this is essential to place a plant into the proper "subfamily".Tom's Plant pages / tom@mmto.org