| Description | Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) is a weed that is the scourge of urban lawns but is also used in salads by a few others. |
|---|---|
| Plant Type | Perennials Hardy, Weeds |
| Sunlight | full |
| Moisture | average |
| Soil & Site | average |
| Flowers | golden yellow composite flower, made of hundreds of ray flowers, no disk flower, flowers form a globular seed head containing hundreds of seeds with parachutes to float in the wind, seeds have no dormancy, the flower can self pollinate itself, two rows of bracts is under the flower, a perennial, flower stems are hollow |
| Fruit | achene (dry fruit that separates from its holder) has attached fluff (pappus) |
| Leaves | forms a rosette of deeply toothed, green lanceolate, runcinate |
| Stems | short base stem is called a crown |
| Roots | tap root |
| Dimensions | 1 plus feet |
| Maintenance | If you pull out this plant and break off some of the tap root it will regrow, I have found it easy to control in the lawn using broadleaved herbicides |
| Propagation | it reproduces by seeds, over winters via taproot |
| Misc Facts | The leaves, tap roots, and flowers are all edible. The deeply dentated leaves got their name from the French dent-de-lion, which translates to Lions Tooth. AKA: Irish daisy, lion's tooth, piss-in-bed, pissinlit, priest's crown, puffball, swine's snout, telltime, yellow gowan. |
| Author's Notes | As kids, we would do many things with this plant. Cut off the flowers and make rings out of the flower stems, linking them together to make chains. Take a flower stem and make 4-6 small slices at the end; when in water, they will curl up. We would have fights with them. We put our thumb on the flowers, popping them off at our friends. Boys will be boys!!! |
| Notes & Reference | #19-Common Weeds (USDA Agricultural Research Service), #136-Weeds of the Northern US and Canada (France Royer, Richard Dickinson), #157-The Sunflower Family in the Upper Midwest (Thomas Antonio, Susanne Masi), "#171- Authors' observations and growing experiences " |
Cart
