Wishes and hope, these things are what childhood is made of. Pick the stem carefully, take a deep breath, and then blow hard to send all the dandelion seeds flying. If you can blow them all off in one breath, your wish will come true. This darling child is helping nature along by sending the seeds off. The Torontoist gives us the history that the weed was introduced in North America by French settlers who brought it as a vegetable.
The name comes from old French for dent de lion - lion's tooth, the shape of the leaves. In modern French, it is known as pissenlit (urinate in bed) due to the diuretic properties of the plant. Pissabeds is the English folkname.
Most of the seed pods are gone in Central Park and dandelion weeds have sprouted yellow flowers. Dandelion leaves are very nutritious (if not laden with pesticides) and are higher in iron than spinach and are an excellent source of vitamin A and calcium, magnesium and potassium. The leaves are tasty in salads or can be cooked. Here is a recipe for making dandelion cookies using the yellow flowers. Here is a recipe for dandelion greens with bacon. Here is a recipe for polenta with tofu, dandelion greens and morel mushrooms. Yum. Dandelion root is registered as a drug in Canada for diuretic use. The milky part of the dandelion has been used as a mosquito repellant and to treat warts. It has many medicinal uses and is a good plant to cultivate for the future.
Go green. Be a guerilla gardener.
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