A hyper-productive weed that’s taken over the world. A master engineer whose seeds can
travel 100 km without anyone’s help. The bane of the persnickety lawn gardener’s existence.
This is not your average flower. It’s the mary poppins of plants: the dandelion.
Hi, I’m Tasha the Amazon and you’re watching Floralogic.
Today we’re talking about the record holder for most commonly picked plant
in the world. You probably already know what I’m talking about.
Dandelions are all part of the genus Taraxacum. Depending who you ask, there are between 60 and
2000 species. Plant taxonomy is pretty messy and experts can’t agree if slightly different,
closely related organisms are separate species, or just subspecies of the same species.
Taxonomy messiness aside, if you’ve seen dandelions in a field you’ve probably
encountered the common dandelion or the red seeded dandelion. These two Eurasian species
have been introduced worldwide for their medicinal purposes, but more on that later.
Their name doesn’t refer to their resemblance to dapper African felines. Their name comes from
their old french name “dente de lion” which means lion’s tooth, because of their serrated leaves.
And it makes sense that the early descriptions of the plant focused on the leaves.
It was one of the most accessible leafy greens available to the masses.
They’re usually blanched and sauteed, and used pretty much the same way as spinach,
That actually looks pretty yummy. These days the focus is of course the
flower head. The little fluff balls use one of the most primitive methods of seed dispersal,
but also one of the most effective. The dandelion's fussy ball starts
out as a yellow flower head. After a couple of days the petals dry out and fall off. Then it
starts growing the parts that we know and love. The dandelion’s blowball, or clock, is a group
of tiny little flowers. Each of those flowers is called a floret. When you blow a dandelion you’ll
notice that the lower part is thicker. This is the fruit of the plant and inside it are the seeds.
The long stalk is called the beak, and the fluffy part at the top is the pappus.
The papus does a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to flying.
The pappus can have over 100 hair-like filaments, which turn it into a parachute.
For thousands of years naturalists have known that these florets can travel for vast
distances of up to 100 km. But it was only recently that researchers figured out how.
The pappus increases aerodynamic drag, which slows down the speed of descent of the florets.
But similar to parachutes, which have a hole in the middle, the filaments of the pappus
only cover about 10% of the space, which means air can flow through it.
This creates a low pressure vortex above it, meaning that the higher pressure air
below the pappus pushes the floret upwards. The weirdest part is that the experiments
showed that this method creates four times more drag than having a regular parachute.
Unfortunately it only works for very lightweight objects, so don’t get any crazy ideas.
Dandelions are so good at seed dispersal that a single plant can populate a hectare
in a year. And that hectare can produce close to a hundred million seeds by the following year.
So, no wonder they can quickly become an undesired weed.
Lawn gardeners and farmers might not want them taking up space and competing with
their plants for resources, but animals don’t seem to mind at all. A huge variety of insects
snack on dandelion pollen, including some fan favorites such as honey bees and butterflies.
Mammals, especially ungulates, readily eat the weed, which gives them a healthy dose of calcium.
In fact, horses were known to enjoy eating dandelion leaves so much that it’s been
nicknamed horse flower and horse lettuce. And of course people use it too. Every
part of the plant is edible and have been used both for food and medicine.
Teas made with the flower heads, leaves, and roots are sometimes
used to treat stomach and liver issues. The most effective usage is as a diuretic.
Dandelion root tea is so effective at making you pee, that the French call it pissenlit,
which means peeing your bed. Pardon my French!
So there you have it. An incredibly prolific plant that took over the world by being an
expert at aerodynamics. Next time you see one in the street, stop appreciate it and after that,
eat it. Why not? It’s full of vitamins A and K.
So what should we talk about next? Please let me know in the comments and don’t forget to subscribe
for new episodes every week. Thanks for watching. See ya!