Daring Dandelions

If you are one who thinks Dandelions are more pesky than perky in your life and lawn, let's change perspective a little and consider... Most gardeners would adore finding a perennial that blooms virtually year-round, transforms itself from a bright spot of flowering sunshine to a lovely fairy fluffball of a seed head, and contains some of nature's most nutritive and medicinal properties as well. Right? Well, such is the dandelion, and chances are it's available Free to you right now, in your own backyard.

Still not convinced this 'weed' is a wonder? Would you be more impressed with a flower that can also tell you the time and predict the weather? Don't believe me? Read on and see...

DANDELION Taraxacum officinale

COMMON/FOLKORE NAMES: Lion's Tooth, Blowball, Swine's Snout, Wild Endive, White Endive, Cankerwort,Piss-a-bed, Priest's Crown, Blowball, Puffball, Fairy Clock, Yellow Gowan, Irish Daisy, Peasant's Cloak

CAUTIONS: Dandelion is one of the safest of all herbs in any quantNever take dandelion greens from a lawn that has been treated with herbicides, pesticides, pre-emergents, growth hormones, or weed/feed fertilizers. Many lawn fertilizers can contain such hormones. Also, do not gather from near roadsides, as the plants can be contaminated from vehicle exhaust fumes.

PARTS USED: Whole plant, depending on usage

HISTORICAL REFERENCES: In Acetana, John Evelyn says of Dandelion: 'With thie homely salley, Hecate entertained Theseus.'

We know of Dandelions being used as a medicine as early as the writings of the Arabian physicians in the tenth century. There is some speculation that the genus name Taraxacum derives from the Persian tark hashgun or wild endive. The dominant view, however, is that it comes from the Greek taraxos (disorder), and akos (remedy), on account of the curative action of the plant. Our word comes from the French Dent de Lion, or Lion's Tooth, for the jagged shape of the leaves.

Dandelion's nickname of 'Swine Snout' comes from the shape of the closed flower head, which somewhat resembles the snout of a pig. In the Middle Ages, the white disk of the seed head, when it had lost all its seed and was simply surrounded by the drooping sheathing bracts, held enough similarity to the familiar site of the shorn priest's pate to earn the name of 'Priest's Crown'

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