Dandelion (Taraxacum agg.)

 

You can probably find a dandelion in flower at just about any time of year but it is March when they seem to burst upon us in great numbers and to many, along with daisies, are an absolute pest making a mess of our lawns, verges, parks, churchyards and open grassy places! Dandelions, however, are a vitally important flower as they form the basic food source for many of our early emerging insects. Find a patch of dandelions and take a look; many will have an insect of some sort buried in amongst the petals gathering nectar.

There are lots of flowers in the same family and telling them apart can be difficult although the 'true' dandelion should be quite obvious to everyone. However, there are numerous closely related micro-species of dandelion and telling them apart is a job for a botanist, not me! As one cannot be totally sure of the exact species it is usual to just call them Taraxacum agg.; agg being aggregated, that is to say, all the dandelion micro-species lumped in together. 

The name dandelion is a corruption of the original French phrase 'dent de lion' meaning 'tooth of the lion'. In Greece it is called Leotodon which also means lion tooth. This is because the notched leaves apparently resemble the teeth of lions! 

The dandelion has many medicinal and culinary uses and they are even cultivated for commercial purposes in some parts of the world. Not here in Sidmouth though, as soon as they appear the council swing into action and cut them down before they can produce those wonderful dandelion clocks we used to blow away as children.