Synantherology is a branch of

botany Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...

that deals with the study of the plant family

Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...

(also called

Compositae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae ...

). The name of the field refers to the fused anthers possessed by members of the family, and recalls an old French name, ''synantherées'', for the family. Although many of the plants of the Asteraceae were described for the European community at least as long ago as

Theophrastus Theophrastus (; grc-gre, Θεόφραστος ; c. 371c. 287 BC), a Greek philosopher and the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He was a native of Eresos in Lesbos.Gavin Hardy and Laurence Totelin, ''Ancient Botany'', Routle ...

, an organization of the family into

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...

s, which remained largely stable throughout the 20th century, was published in 1873 by

George Bentham George Bentham (22 September 1800 – 10 September 1884) was an English botanist, described by the weed botanist Duane Isely as "the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century". Born into a distinguished family, he initially studie ...

. In a 1970 article titled "The New Synantherology", Harold E. Robinson advocated greater attention to microstructures (studied with the compound light microscope). He was not the first, as

Alexandre de Cassini Count Alexandre Henri Gabriel de Cassini (9 May 1781 – 23 April 1832) was a French botanist and naturalist, who specialised in the sunflower family (Asteraceae) (then known as family Compositae). He was the youngest of five children of Jacqu ...

and others of the 19th century split species based on fine distinctions of microstructure, a tendency which Bentham found excessive. Noted United States synantherologists include:{{citation needed, date=February 2021 * T. M. Barkley * V. A. Funk * D. J. Keil * R. M. King * Harold E. Robinson * J. A. Soule * T. F. Stuessy * Billie Lee Turner Sr.

References

Asteraceae Branches of botany