Evolution
provided by EOL authors
There are approximately 23,000 species in the Asteraceae family. Broad agreement exists on the center of biodiversity or evolutionary spatial origin as the High Andes region; however, the time epoch of origination is under dispute. One school of thought places the evolutionary origin of the family at circa 40 million years ago (mya), where an alternative interpretation places the temporal origin at approximately 100 mya. Roberts argues convincingly that the more accurate dating of the family origin is the earlier dating, on the basis of continental drift data.
