_Taraxacum officinale (T. Dens-leonis)_
_Flower-head_--Solitary, golden yellow, 1 to 2 in. across, containing
150 to 200 perfect ray florets on a flat receptacle at the top of a
hollow, milky scape 2 to 18 in. tall. _Leaves:_ From a very deep, thick,
bitter root; oblong to spatulate in outline, irregularly jagged.
_Preferred Habitat_--Lawns, fields, grassy waste places.
_Flowering Season_--Every month in the year.
_Distribution_--Around the civilized world.
“Dear common flower that grow’st beside the way,
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold.
* * * * *
“Gold such as thine ne’er drew the Spanish prow
Through the primeval hush of Indian seas,
Nor wrinkled the lean brow
Of age, to rob the lover’s heart of ease.
’Tis the spring’s largess, which she scatters now
To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand;
Though most hearts never understand
To take it at God’s value, but pass by
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye.”
Let the triumphant Anglo-Saxon with dreams of expansion that include the
round earth, the student of sociology who wishes an insight into
cooperative methods as opposed to individualism, the young man anxious
to learn how to get on, parents with children to be equipped for the
struggle for existence, business men and employers of labor, all sit
down beside the dandelion and take its lesson to heart. How has it
managed without navies and armies--for it is no imperialist--to land its
peaceful legions on every part of the civilized world and take
possession of the soil? How can this neglected wayside composite weed
triumph over the most gorgeous hothouse individual on which the
horticulturist expends all the science at his command; to flourish where
others give up the struggle defeated; to send its vigorous offspring
abroad prepared for similar conquest of adverse conditions wherever met;
to attract myriads of customers to its department store, and by
consummate executive ability to make every visitor unwittingly
contribute to its success? Any one who doubts the dandelion’s fitness to
survive should humble himself by spending days and weeks on his knees,
trying to eradicate the plant from even one small lawn with a knife,
only to find the turf starred with golden blossoms, or, worse still from
his point of view, hoary with seed balloons the following spring.
Deep, very deep, the stocky bitter root penetrates where heat and
drought affect it not, nor nibbling rabbits, moles, grubs of insects,
and other burrowers break through and steal. Cut off the upper portion
only with your knife, and not one, but several, plants will likely
sprout from what remains; and, however late in the season, will
economize stem and leaf to produce flowers and seeds, cuddled close
within the tuft, that set all your pains at naught. “Never say die” is
the dandelion’s motto. An exceedingly bitter medicine is extracted
from the root of this dandelion. Likewise are the leaves bitter.
Although they appear so early in the spring, they must be especially
tempting to grazing cattle and predaceous insects, the rosettes remain
untouched, while other succulent, agreeable plants are devoured
wholesale. Only Italians and other thrifty Old World immigrants, who
go about then with sack and knife collecting the fresh young tufts,
give the plants pause; but even they leave the roots intact. When
boiled like spinach or eaten with French salad dressing, the bitter
juices are extracted from the leaves or disguised--mean tactics by an
enemy outside the dandelion’s calculation. All nations know the plant
by some equivalent for the name _dent de lion_ = lion’s tooth, which
the jagged edges of the leaves suggest.
After flowering, it again looks like a bud, lowering its head to mature
seed unobserved. Presently rising on a gradually lengthened scape to
elevate it where there is no interruption for the passing breeze from
surrounding rivals, the transformed head, now globular, white, airy, is
even more exquisite, set as it is with scores of tiny parachutes ready
to sail away. A child’s breath puffing out the time of day, a vireo
plucking at the fluffy ball for lining to put in its nest, the summer
breeze, the scythe, rake, and mowing machines, sudden gusts of winds
sweeping the country before thunderstorms--these are among the agents
that set the flying vagabonds free. In the hay used for packing they
travel to foreign lands in ships, and, once landed, readily adapt
themselves to conditions as they find them. After soaking in the briny
ocean for twenty-eight days--long enough for a current to carry them a
thousand miles along the coast--they are still able to germinate.