Those round, short, golden yellow flowers that emerge in spring are often scorned, especially when they cover lawns. Dandelions are everywhere, people complain.
One man sprays herbicides on every one of those little puffballs to kill them all. Meanwhile, someone else is picking dandelion greens to make salad. But how many dandelion salads can you eat? And can you really kill them all?
The better question might be to ask what is good about those unwanted lawn ornaments that torment some of us each spring.
A single dandelion can produce many seeds. (Sheryl DeVore/Lake County News-Sun)
Dandelions are not native to North America. However, they’ve probably been here for as long as the first European settlers visited the continent. Some records indicate the Pilgrims on the Mayflower brought the dandelions over here as either food, medicine, or both.
Native to Eurasia, the dandelion was cultivated by the Chinese to treat liver and digestive problems. Even in the 10th century, long before North America was born, Arabian doctors used the plant for medicine.
The name dandelion comes from the French, “dent de lion,” translated as lion’s teeth referring to the tooth-edged-shaped leaves of the plant.
Some invasive plants, like buckthorn, can really wreak havoc on an ecosystem, and must be removed. But dandelions are not in that same category. In most, if not all of the United States, dandelions don’t take over native species, nor do they disrupt ecosystems. They don’t crowd out big bluestem, golden Alexander and other native plants in the prairies, for example.
On a recent walk through a Lake County nature preserve, I saw thousands of blooming trout lilies, native to this region. Here and there were a few dandelions, mostly at the edge of the trail and the woods. But they did not encroach on the large stand of native wildflowers blooming beneath native oak trees.
Dandelions, however, do take over lawns, which aren’t native to the U.S. either. But a clean, green lawn with no weeds, especially those dandelions, became a symbol of wealth in Europe and early on in North American history. Those who had dandelions covering their lawns were often considered lazy or poor.
We do not herbicide our dandelions, but my husband definitely is not lazy, because he handpicks them so they don’t take over what little lawn we have. Quite frankly, I think just leaving them alone makes more sense, and certainly you can just mow them over from time to time. However, admittedly, the dandelions will come right back up a few days later because they have fat, deep taproots to store plenty of energy needed for the next flowers.
The best reason to leave the dandelions alone is because they provide nectar and pollen to the first awakening bees of springtime in a suburban yard that is not overflowing with native blooming plants.
And once the hot summer sets in, they seem to mostly disappear until a few pop up in the coolness of autumn.
I’ve thought more than once about collecting dandelions and adding the leaves to a salad. Nutritionists say dandelion leaves contain iron, calcium and other vitamins and minerals.
I decided against making a dandelion salad, because there are just too many folks in my neighborhood spraying their lawns with herbicides and pesticides, which I don’t want to ingest.
Besides that, you just are not going to stop them. Each dandelion flower produces up to 200 seeds. A week or two after a dandelion bloom turns into a white puffball, all of those seeds disperse. The seeds get carried by the wind, and so even if someone has doused every one of the dandelions on their lawn, floating seeds from other yards may land there and germinate again next spring.
Some migratory bird species, for example the white-crowned sparrow and indigo bunting, eat dandelion seeds on their way to their breeding grounds. These birds help plant dandelions, too.
Perhaps it would be more fun to pick up a dandelion when it’s gone to seed, blow on it and scatter the seeds into the air. It’s just such a delicious childhood memory, one I wonder if young people experience in the 21st century.
Dandelions are somewhat sacred in Waukegan, where author Ray Bradbury lived and wrote his famous book, “Dandelion Wine.” Bradbury described how dandelions were harvested and used to create wine, which would be ready at the end of summer.
I have tasted dandelion wine at the annual Dandelion Wine Festival in Waukegan and it is quite good. So while most folks are grousing about dandelions, I would prefer sitting on a lawn full of them, sipping wine made from them and reading Bradbury’s book named after them.
Sheryl DeVore has worked as a full-time and freelance reporter, editor and photographer for the Chicago Tribune and its subsidiaries. She’s the author of several books on nature and the environment. Send story ideas and thoughts to sheryldevorewriter@gmail.com.
