The Dandelion
The dandelion is a non-native perennial, herbaceous plant with long, lance-shaped leaves. They're so deeply toothed, that the French named this plant (Taraxacum officinale) Dent-de-lion, which means tooth of lion. The leaves are 3-12" long, and 1/2 - 2-1/2" wide, always growing in a basal rosette. The rosette's immature, tightly wrapped leaf bases just above the top of the root forming a tight "crown."
The dandelion's well-known yellow, composite flowers are 1-2" wide. They grow individually on hollow flower stalks 2-18" tall. Each flower head consists of hundreds of tiny ray flowers. Unlike some other composites, there are no disk flowers. Reflexed bracts grow under each flower-head. The flower-head can change into the familiar, white, globular seed-head overnight. Each seed has a tiny parachute, to spread it far and wide in the wind.
Reference: “Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not So Wild) Places” by Steve Brill. Today's photo is by WPC Volunteer John M. Karian, who does outdoor photography in Venango County.
| O DANDELION, rich and haughty,
King of village flowers!
Each day is coronation time,
You have no humble hours.
I like to see you bring a troop
To beat the blue-grass spears,
To scorn the lawn-mower that would be
Like fate's triumphant shears,
Your yellow heads are cut away,
It seems your reign is o'er.
By noon you raise a sea of stars
More golden than before.
Vachel Lindsay
American Poet
(1879 - 1931) |
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