Lions' Teeth

Buttercups and daisies are very much connected with childhood. Only a few days ago I saw a mother patiently teaching her child how to make a daisy chain and quite recently I have seen kids using buttercups to see who likes butter. But dandelions, though familiar to everyone, are rather less connected to these innocent customs. Except of course, as a foolproof way of telling the time by blowing the 'chimney sweeps' formed by the fruiting heads. (The closed heads feature prominently in Albrecht Durer's beautifully observed painting, 'A large tuft of herbs', dating from 1503.)

Durer's famous painting, showing dandelion heads in

the background

The word dandelion comes, as most people know, from the French dent de lion - lions' tooth, but the jagged leaves look nothing like any lion's teeth I have seen.




The jagged leaves of a dandelion. Christchurch Drive, Daventry.

8 May, 2020

The flowers are currently at their peak, but occasional flowers will bloom almost throughout the year.  As I child I would pick bunches and get told off by my mum. 'You'll wet the bed!' she would exclaim. Dandelions are indeed a diuretic and another French name for the plant is Pis-en-lit. I hardly need to elaborate.


Regarding names, the Latin name for the dandelion is Taraxacum officinale. The specific epithet 'officinale' crops up again and again in familiar herbs for it simply means 'of shops' or 'of apothecaries'. 'Taraxacum' is more of a problem but it apparently derives from the Persian, and refers to some sort of bitter herb.


Bitter or not, the leaves of dandelions have been used for centuries as a salad herb, although the plant is usually blanched to remove some of the bitterness. The thick roots, dried, roasted and ground, have been used as a substitute for coffee and the milky latex has been investigated as a source of rubber. Only last year a German tyre-manufacturer stated that production was soon to begin using rubber from dandelions for bicycle tyres. It helps that dandelions are very variable and they have been divided up into 'microspecies, with 46 of these recorded from Northamptonshire and about 240 microspecies in Britain as a whole.


And then there is dandelion wine...

A helpful picture for those people who have never seen a dandelion!

Stefen Hill Pocket Park, 8 May, 2020.

Poets have, for centuries, waxed lyrical over violets, daffodils, roses, daisies and so on, but few have given much space for the dandelion. Thank goodness for Northamptonshire's own poet, John Clare.


                         And Dandelions like to suns will bloom
                         Aside some bank or hillock low.  - Clare's Village Minstrel 1821


And again


                         There the dandelion's flowers
                         Gilt with dew, like suns, with showers.  Clare's Cowper Green


Perhaps were should accord the humble dandelion more respect. And incidentally, if you fancy growing something unusual, there is Taraxacum carneocoloratum, with purple-pink flowers. Now there's a thought!

Dandelion 'chimney sweep' with Lady's Smock alongside.

Stefen Hill Pocket Park. 8 Maay, 2020