Asteraceae as an idea for a late collection

I walked round campus yesterday collecting grasses. There were many. I had a go at identifying some but perhaps due to being in recovery of some germ, I wasn't getting very far. Nevertheless, I feel that there must be enough species even without the annoyingly difficult ones, so that grasses could still make a good collection.

My other thought was that Asteraceae must also be possible. Not all of them have flowers at the moment though, which is annoying. But some Asteraceae are a lot more identifiable without flowers than some grasses are with them. So even those might be allowable in your collection so long as they had sufficient features to be identifiable (those features are what you'd want to explain in your notebook).

Pineapple mayweed (CC image by Krzysztof Ziarnek)

These are some species of Asteraceae I've seen recently:

Ragwort
Smooth sow-thistle
Ox-eye daisy
Daisy
Bristly ox-tongue
Dandelion
Spear thistle (I've seen no flowers)
Pineapple mayweed... allegedly smells of pineapple but it just smells peculiar to me
some sort of other mayweed / chamomile
Nipplewort
Lesser burdock (no flowers, but very distinctive leaves at the moment)
Groundsel
Rough hawkbit (with strange forked hairs)
Mouse-ear-hawkweed

That's 14 species and I'm sure there must be plenty more, as there are many things with yellow dandelion-like flowers about at the moment (they just require patience to investigate). You'll need a flower guide with good descriptions - I like Francis Rose's 'Wild Flower Key' and you're welcome to borrow a copy. There are keys in it to the Asteraceae - so if you showed how you'd used them to identify your plants, that would get you many marks.

Again, if you try to visit a range of habitats (for example, go to the seaside or a bit of limestone grassland), you'll be more likely to find a few more species.You can press them easily under some books, but make sure you change their newspaper and leave them long enough, so they dry out and don't go mouldy.

If you'd like some help, please do email me.