Dandilions

Dandilions are growing in this field right across from our home. You can actually see our house right above Kasiah's head in this photo. I couldn't help but take my girls to go play with these wild yellow growing weeds. They had a dandi ol' time!

Germans brought the plant to Pennsylvania in the 1850’s and used it as an early spring infusion of nutrition and vitamins. The English also brought the plants over to cure liver problems and other illnesses. Native Americans soon started to see benefits from the plants and started to grow them for the same uses as others. The plant is grown in India and is used mainly for a remedy for liver problems. Most recently the dandelion root is being grown and exported to Russia for use in medical remedies.

Interesting Facts

The word Dandelion comes from the French name for the plant dents de lion. This means teeth of the lion and refers to the jagged edges of the leaf of the plant.

The other French name for this plant is pis-en-lit, in English this means wet the bed. Dandelions deserve this name because their greens, when eaten, remove water from the body. So eating the greens could cause someone to well… you can guess the rest. Not recommend for a bedtime snack.

The dandelion first came from Asia but it now calls the entire planet home!

The Dandelion provides an important food source to bees. The pollen from this plant helps bees out in the spring because it flowers early and the flowers continue through to the fall providing constant food. In fact no less then 93 different kinds of insects use Dandelion pollen as food.The Dandelion seeds are important food to many small birds.