Dandelions...
* Eat them. Certain varieties, usually the long-stemed ones, are used as salad greens, soups, wines, and teas. When cooking, blanch them or saute them to make them more tasty.
* The roasted root is used as a coffee substitute. It's caffeine-free.
* It's one of the ingredients of root beer.
* Provides nectar and pollen for bees and some butterflies.
* Adds nitrogen to the soil.
* Dandelion is an herb used for many conditions, such as loss of appetite, upset stomach, intestinal gas, gallstones, joint pain, muscle aches, eczema, and bruises, laxative, skintoner, blood tonic, and digestive tonic, virus, cancer.
* Dandelions contain latex so tire manufacturers are experimenting on using the latex from them in their tires (but that doesn't mean tires will be yellow).
Other facts:
* They evolved 30 million years ago in Eurasia, they have a long lineage, they may outlast Man.
* Don't try to escape them. They grow in most of the temperate climates in the world.
* The plant is also known as blowball, cankerwort, doon-head-clock, witch's gowan, milk witch, lion's-tooth, yellow-gowan, Irish daisy,monks-head, priest's-crown and puff-ball; other common names include faceclock, pee-a-bed, wet-a-bed, and wine's snout. (Enough said!)]
If you are now really excited about the dandelion, you can go to dandelion festivals in Dover, Ohio, and White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia...or you can go to my front yard, it's closer.
Bring a trowel.
Monty Siekerman
