h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Here in the states they are everywhere, from coast to coast. I never really thought about it, but I assumed they where a North American thing. Because of my unusual childhood, I am more aware of folklore and edible wild plants than most thirty year old Americans, but I had never in my life heard it called "We-the-bed" or any such thing. I have had dandilion wine more than once but never noticed any blader reaction.

Learn something new every day!

The dandelion both is and is not native to England and the USA. Confused? So are all the people who write about the dandelion without saying what kind of dandelion they mean. Yes, there are several different dandelions. Most those up mountains and in bogs are nativebut the big fleshy roadside dandelion is not. This situation occurs in several animals and plants. Think of our deer. We have native red deer but introduced deer like the muntjac and sika have spread and are seen in the wild.

With deer it is easy to tell the difference but with dandelions you need to be shown the small differences. If you turn the flower heads over, the roadside damdelion flowerhead sits in a grey-green cup of leafy appendages. The basal ones are turned back towards the stalk. When the seed head is formed the seeds are brown.

The wild dandelion plants and flowers are to be found in short turf, in bogs, up mountains but not alond the roadside. These wild plants are often delicate, the leaves toothed to the midrib, the flower heads tiny. Underneath the flower head the appendages are green, arranged like tiles all the way up and only the very basal ones, if any, turned back. The seeds of most are red in colour. I have pulled these seeds out of fossil beds in England with mammoth and lemming remains - in other words dating to the Ice Age. I would expect the same native fossil dandelions to have been found in America and Asia.

Thanks for reading, I think I did say which one I was writing about, the Common Dandelion, Taraxacum Officinale - native to the UK. If there's a different one in the States then I assume it's got a different name. If it hasn't, then it must be the same one, regardless of what small differences there are.