THE NOT-SO COMMON DANDELION

Dandelion Botanical Drawing by Regina O Hughes. From Common Weeds of the United States.

DANDELIONS  (Taraxacum officinale) – the greens were a springtime treat for Native American Indian tribes. Leaves may be eaten raw, steamed, boiled, added to soups. Dandelion leaves have 8 times more antioxidants than spinach, 2 times more calcium, 3 times more Vit. A and 5 times more vit. K and Vit E. than spinach.This rich nutritional resource should hardly be called common!

            If you include them in a salad, expect a strong flavor, but served with a sweet & sour mustard dressing, are very good especially in the spring.  Try to find pesticide free plants, and wash them very well. p 22-3- Eating on the Wild Side.

            The plant was naturalized from Eurasia, and also native to the U.S. Dandelions are a perennial herb with a taproot that can be more than a foot deep, that often breaks off if you try to dig them out. Usually they will grow back from a small bit of root left behind. They are not easily killed by herbicides.

            The seeds, carried widely on the wind find places to grow in many kinds of soils. They are common in a belt across the U.S. from east to west, but are less prolific in the southernmost states. (Drawing and this paragraph derived from Common Weeds of the United States,  prepared by the Agricultural Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, and published by Dover. 1971)

 Writing by Ruth Zachary, from information in attributed sources.