A Wild Flower Named Dandelion

      Hello friends, I know, I know you think I've lost it because I'm writing about Dandelions'.

   Here's the thing, when I was little my Grandma baby sat us while my mom worked, she would work in the flower gardens. And I would sit and watch her for a while, then go pick 'my' flowers.

 That's what my Grandmother always called them: 'Natalie's Flowers' I would pick them by the hand fulls and put them in water in little jelly jars. 

 We know what happens after a few days, yep into helicopter seeds!

 She never complained and just swept them up. 

 Memories are strange that way, how they just come out of no where and get you. Make you think about things, some good, some not.

 So here it is, everything you never wanted to know about Dandelions!

 The dandelion is a perennial, herbaceous plant with long, lance-shaped leaves. 

  So deeply toothed, that the French gave the plant the name Dent-DE-Lion which means lion's tooth in Old French.

  The leaves are three to twelve inches long, and half to two and a half inches wide, always growing in a basal rosette.

 The yellow flowers are one to two inches wide.

 They grow individually on hollow flower stalks two to eighteen inches tall. 

  Each flower head consists of hundreds of tiny ray flowers. Bracts grow under each flower. 

  Flower heads can change into the familiar, white, globular seed head overnight. 

  Each seed has a little parachute, to help it spread far and wide in the wind.

The thick, brittle, branching taproot grows up to ten inches long.

 Dandelions easily adapt to where ever they make

 their homes

.  

They were introduced into the Midwest from 

Europe to provide food for the imported 

honeybees.

They now grow worldwide. Dandelions spread

 further, are more difficult to exterminate, and

 grow under adverse circumstances.

 Most gardeners hate them, but the more you try

to weed them up, the faster they will grow back
 The taproot is deep, twisted, and brittle.

And unless you remove it completely, it will 

regenerate.

If you break off more pieces than you unearth,

 the dandelion will become more than one plant.

. 

"What's a dandelion digger upper for?"

 a dandelion asked his wife.

 "It's a human invention to help us reproduce," 

his wife replied.