Like all plants the dandelion plant has had many names through the 

centuries including witch gowan, doonhead clock,  blowball and 

lions tooth, priests crown, swine snout, white endive, wild endive 
cankerwort(1) and it's Latin name Taraxum Officinale. 

Gowan is a scottish word for yellow flower. In pre-christian 

Europe the use of herbs in medecine and religion were a strong part

of the Wicca traditions. Wicca is the root of the word witch. The 

dandelion may have been the wiccan's yellow flower or witch gowan.

Doon is he name of a river in Scotland. The round flower and 

spherical seedhead of the dandelion may have reminded people in 

Scotland of a clock. Making the dandelion the clock that grows at 

the head of the Doon river or the doonhead clock.

 Anyone who's seen a dandelion going to seed up close knows that 

the spherical collection of seeds is just waiting for you or the 

wind to blow them away. Hence the name blowball or puffball.

 On a page on he World Wide Web posted by the science Museum of 

Minnesota it says,  "Dandelion seeds are carried away by the wind 

and travel like tiny parachutes. A strong wind can carry the 

parachutes miles away from the parent plant."

 "A dandelion is really many tiny flowers bunched together. After a 

dandelion blooms, each of its tiny flowers produces a seed. Each 

seed is attached to a stem with white fluffy threads."

  In french lions tooth is "dent de lion", probably the 

etemological root of dandelion. According to Lee Allen Peterson's 

Field Guide to Wild Edible Plants the dandelion's leaves are tooth 

dented, have sharp irregular lobes and along with the  stems exude 

a white juice when pressed.
 Peterson adds that the flowers are daisy formed, bright yellow, 

heavilly honey scented, later forming white fluffy 'clocks'.

They grow to a height of (2-18 inches tall) (5-45 cm tall). And they 

flower from March through September.

 Mrs. M Grieve wrote in A Modern Herbal in 1931 that, "The root is 

perennial and tapering...attaining in good soil a length of a foot 

or more and half an inch to an inch in diameter. Old roots divide 

at the crown into several heads. The root is fleshy and brittle, 

externally of a dark brown, internally white and abounding in an 

inodorous milky juice of bitter, but not disagreeable taste."

 The officianale in it's latin name means medicinal. And there is 

a rich history of dandelions being used medicinally. 

  Julieet De Baircli Levy says in her book Common Herbs For 

Natural Health, "It is blood-cleansing, blood-tonic, 

lymph-cleansing.  Also has external uses for treatment of warts and 

hard pimples. Native Americans apply the split stems to bee-stings."

 She adds that it is useful for "Blood-cleansing for all disorders 

of liver and bile (especially jaundice). A diet of the greens 

improves the enamel of the teeth. Helps in diabetes, obesity and 

oversleepiness. The white juice is used for application to warts, 

old sores and blisters."

 Levy recommends, "A half dozen or so of the leaves eaten daily. 

Being rather bitter they should be mixed with some milder salad 

herbs such as lettuce." 

 BobWolfe Jung an apprentice and student of the 
Northeast School of Botanical Medecine in 1996 and
1997 says, "I eat alot of dandelions as a bitter. You want 

to eat bitters 15 minutes before you eat to get bile going. 

Bile is what breaks down heavier lipids. It gets increased by 

eating dandelion heads and bitter greens. In Europe they have 

bitter salads because they eat them first."

	In his book The Healing Powers of Herbs John Heiderman says, 
"The fat we consume in our diets enters the gastrointestinal tract, 
where the liver secretes a yellowish, brown or green fluid called bile 
which is then discharged into the duodenum where emulsification 
begins. Sometimes though if an undue amount of fat is consumed or if 
the liver isn't functioning quite like it should, then not enough bile 
gets released to get the job done. Theresult can be a bad case of 
indigestion."

	"However the same bitter components in dandelions which give it 
that 'unique' coffee flavor and smell also manage to activate the liver 
into producing more bile."

	"Heinerman recommends four capsules of dandelion root powder 
before meals that include, "...meat or greasy foods such as french 
fries. A warm cup of dandelion tea or, even better, dandelion root 
coffee, can work just as well."

	"Lecithin is a term used by scientists to denote phjosphorus fatty 
acids produced inside the body by the liver or found organically in 
nature. Lecithin helps in the metabolism of fats, so that they don't 
accumulate within the liver or heart, and is also concentrated in the 
myelin sheths of our nerves. protecting them from stress and 
infection."

 Heinerman book also says that, "Dr James A Duke, formerly of the 
USDA Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville Maryland pointed out 
in the January, 19, 1991 issue of Science News Magazine that 
dandelion flowers have a lecithin concentration of 29,700 parts per 
million (ppm), soybeans, the traditional source, came in with a 
count between 15,000 - 20,000 ppm. One could just as well drink 
a glass of dandelion wine to get one's daily supply of lecithin instead 
of taking liquid lecithin or granules." 

	Grieve says, "The first mention of the Dandelion as a medecine 

is in the works of the Arabian physicians of the tenth and eleventh

centuries, who speak of it as a sort of wild Endive under the name 

of taraxacon." It's current latin name is taraxacum officinale.

 The plant, according to Grieve does not occur in the southern 

hemisphere but is, "...at home in all parts of the north temperate 

zone...",  and cultivated in India as a remedy for liver complaints. 

	 I grew up in Upstate New York and every day in the summer 

after work my father would come home and try to dig up all the 

dandelions that had dared show their faces on the lawn. At the time 

I though that he was simply keeping our lawn presentable. Now that 

I have become a culinary gatherer of dandelions and their roots in 

my garden I find that the process has it1s own rewards and suspect 

that there is an instinctual desire to dig up dandelions. It1s fun, 

whether you1re in the hot sun or in the cold weather. 

	According to Peterson autumn is the recommended time to gather 

the roots. Grieve says, "Only large, fleshy and well formed roots 

should be collected, from plants two years old, not slender (or) 

forked ones. Roots produced in good soil are easier to dig up 

without breaking, and are thicker and less forked than those 

growing on waste places and by the road side. Collectors should 

therefore, only dig in good free soil, in moisture and shade, from 

meadow land. Dig up in wet weather, but not during frost, which 

materially lessens the activity of the roots. Avoid breaking the 

roots, using a long trowel or a fork, lifting steadily and 

carefully."

	While dandelion may be a valuable healing herb, one can have 

fun with dandelions as well.

	One can brew a tea from the roots, flowers and leaves, coffee 

from the dried roots and wine from the blossoms. Levy writes 

3Dandelion coffe is made from the roots, which should be collected 

at the end of the year for this purpose. After careful cleaning 

they are oven-dried at low temperature for several hours, until 

they emit a pleasant roasted aroma. They are then ground to a fine 

powder. A little pure coffee may be mixed in with the dandelion 

root to improve the scent and flavour. Also roasted chicory root 

can be added, a teaspoon to every twelve teaspoons of dandelion 

coffee.2

	Grieve recommends that those growing dandelions on purpose 

should pick the flowers before they go to seed. If you don't get to 

them in time you may as well have some fun and blow on those 

dandelion puffballs. In England they call it the dandelion game 

which  Rolling Stones have written a song about. 		

Prince or Pauper, beggar man or king,
Play the game with every blow you bring.
Little girls and boys come out to play.
Bring your dandelions to blow away.

Dandelion don1t tell no lies.
Dandelions will make you wise.
Tell me if she laughs or cries.
Blow away Dandelions.

-Mick Jagger and Keith Richards


THE BADVERTISING INSTITUTE - THE TRUTH ABOUT TOBACCO
THE HERB NETWORK


NOTES:
"Class  Dicotyledoneae.
Family  Compositae. Flowers in dense clusters on the ends of a coarse hollow stalk a foot or more long. Pollination by self or insects but the pollen is sterile and no fertilization takes place though fertile seeds are produced. The fruits in clusters appear like loose white balls though individuals look like parachutes. Flower all summer. Seedlings, spiny margined."
"Flower heads support a few small insects like thrips. Cattle will sometimes eat the leaves, but do not choose them. Water 86%; nitrogen free extract 7%; protein, 3%; fat, 1%; ash,2%. Goldfinches particularly fond of the fruit."
Palmer, E. Laurence. Weed Patches and Waste Places. The fifteenth in Nature Magazine's series of educational inserts. pg 325. Date unknown, but from context of articles, I would guess between 1940 and1960.