one of the reasons i enjoy blogging is that i am learning new things and re-learning old things all the time. blogging is not just about sharing experiences, knowledge and any information; it is about sharing the correct information. therefore, it is important to have the information we have gathered properly verified so that we do not perpetuate some inaccurate or wrong information.
for this blog posting, i got some help from my blogger friend john harper. i had not been sure if the picture below shows the flower or the seed head.
this is what john wrote: dandelion seed heads. the seed is carried on a puff of wind a long distance from the parent plant. the name dandelion derives from the french word 'dent te lion' meaning tooth of the lion. as is usual with words taken into english, the word starts to undergo a metamorphosis through slurring, laziness and mispronounciation. hence the transformation from dent de lion in french to dandelion in english. dandelions are considered a pernicious weed in the uk despite the flower being fairly attractive. it has a long tap root that breaks when you try to dig it up. it also exudes a milky white latex like fluid that stains your hand grey. as a child we called the seed heads dandelion clocks. you blew at the seed head and counted off the times as one o'clock for one puff, two o'clock for two, etc.
i have always been fascinated by the dandelion. it was featured in one of my primary school reading texts and mentioned more than once in more than one of the many enid blyton books that i devoured when i entered secondary school. when i was in primary school, i hardly read any book other than the text books. when i was in secondary one, i was told to read more to improve my english language.
on one of our travel trips overseas - i think it was on our first trip to new zealand, we came across some dandelions by the roadside. excitedly, i picked one and blew on it to show my daughters how the tiny 'parachutes' fly in the wind. i was just doing what i had seen in an illustration in my text-book many years ago.
i always thought that the globular seed head was the flower of the plant. although i often saw the yellow flowers together with the seed heads, i did not realise the connection until i started to read up about the dandelion and checked with john. the dandelion (the seed head) actually comes from the flower of the dandelion plant. i also found out that there are false dandelions. according to john, these are called catsears.
like the cherries which i blogged about earlier, the dandelion is also a harbinger of summer. they are to be found in abundance everywhere in summer although you do see them at other times of the year.
