Dandelion
(Taraxacum officionale)
The dandelion will grow wherever its seed finds a foothold and is one of our most common flowering plants.
It will live happily in fields, lawns, garden beds, road verges, wasteland and even the narrow gaps between paving slabs. And once it has established its deep tap root, it can be quite difficult to dislodge.
Dandelions flower from March to July. The flowers are pollinated by small flies and hoverflies and the seed is dispersed by the wind.
Fascinating fact:
Dandelion leaves have diuretic properties (which means they make you wee) and this gives rise to many of the plant’s nicknames – tiddle-beds etc. The white sap gives the name milk-gowan and the seeds and seedheads are called dandelion clock, fairies, parachutes, chimney sweepers and peasant’s clock.
Dandelions are a favourite food of rabbits and humans can eat them too. The flowers have a warm, honey flavour and the leaves can be used in salads. They are sometimes bitter but this can be eased by frying them to a crisp. The dandelion’s tap root has in the past been dried, roasted, ground up and used as a coffee substitute.
As well as using it as a diuretic, traditional healers prescribed dandelion for stomach and liver disorders and colds.
Dandelion folklore is mostly about its fluffy seedheads. You can tell the time by the number of attempts you take to blow all the seeds away (or work out how many years until you get married), or you can catch a seed from the air and make a wish.
Dandelions are related to hawkweeds, hawkbits, sowthistles and many others. There are more than 200 micro sub-species of the common dandelion which are almost impossible to tell apart.
Did you know
The name “dandelion” comes from the French “dent de lion”, or lion’s tooth. It refers to the plant’s deeply notched leaves.