A hollow, leafless stem carries one golden head of strap florets; break it and it bleeds white sap, and the seed head is a puffball 'clock'
Dandelion - Taraxacum officinale agg.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Dandelion
Native · flowers March to October, often much longer · lawns, verges, waste ground
Taraxacum officinale agg. — Asteraceae
The dandelion is the most familiar wildflower in Britain, and its golden heads are among the first and most useful nectar sources of spring. What we call the common dandelion is really a swarm of 'microspecies': most reproduce by apomixis, setting seed without fertilisation, so each lineage is a fixed clone. That is why botanists split Taraxacum into hundreds of tiny species in Britain.
How to spot them
- ▸A single golden head of many strap-shaped florets on a hollow, unbranched, leafless stem that oozes white milky sap
- ▸A flat rosette of lobed, toothed leaves - the 'lion's teeth' - with no stem leaves
- ▸Outer bracts below the head bend sharply back on themselves in the common dandelion; many microspecies differ
- ▸The seed head becomes a globe of parachute-borne fruits, the 'clock'
- ▸Look-alikes: cat's-ear has a branched, scaly stem and hairy leaves; hawkbits have bristly leaves; colt's-foot flowers with no leaves at all
How to know it
Most British plants in this genus set seed without fertilisation, so each is a clone; botanists recognise hundreds of 'microspecies' in Britain
Dandelion - reproduction by apomixis (agamospermy).
Its English name is a corruption of the French dent-de-lion, 'lion's tooth', from the deeply toothed leaves
Dandelion - modern French pissenlit refers to its diuretic reputation.
Leaves of this plant are eaten in salads, its roots roasted as a coffee substitute, and its flowers fermented into wine
Dandelion.
A common lawn plant that the Wildlife Trusts say supports over fifty kinds of insect; it is an important early food source for pollinators
Dandelion - the Trusts' 'Make yours a dandelion spring' campaign encouraged longer lawns.
Told from cat's-ear by an unbranched stem with no scales on it and by leaves that are hairless, lobed and in a flat rosette
Dandelion (Hypochaeris radicata, cat's-ear, is the look-alike).
Children blow the seed head to tell the time, counting the puffs; each fruit hangs from a silky parachute called a pappus
Dandelion clock.
Quick-fire facts
- •Taraxacum is a large, difficult genus; the Wildlife Trusts note the 'common dandelion' is a variety of forms or microspecies
- •Most British microspecies are apomicts: seed forms without fertilisation, giving genetically identical offspring
- •The BSBI recognises a great many microspecies in Britain (well over 200), grouped into sections such as Ruderalia, Erythrosperma and Palustria
- •Dandelion has a deep taproot that regrows from fragments, which is why it is so hard to remove from a lawn
- •The name means 'lion's tooth' (French dent-de-lion) - a reference to the leaf teeth
- •Flowers open in the morning and close in the evening and in dull weather; the Wildlife Trusts give the flowering time as January to December
- •The related Russian dandelion, Taraxacum kok-saghyz, has been trialled as a source of natural rubber
- •Traditional drinks include dandelion wine and dandelion and burdock, and the roasted root is used as a caffeine-free coffee substitute
Drill it — 7 cards
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Sources
- The Wildlife Trusts — Common dandelion