They weren’t always weeds. Somewhere before recorded history, amid the Dark Ages (5th – 15th centuries), the common dandelion, Taraxacum officinale, was an herb — an important medicine and food plant.
By the mid-1600s, European settlers had brought this rare and precious plant to America.
Jump through history to the present and Texas Master Naturalists, Carolyn Cardile, and her husband, Paul, as they travel in their modern-day covered wagon to spend summers in Colorado.
Carolyn has found yet another fascinating use for the common dandelion — as a source of entertainment.
Carolyn e-mailed me shortly after reading the May 10, blog post about dandelions. Do recall that the common dandelion is not common here in the Valley.
“I have seen birds and chipmunks eat dandelions in the Colorado mountains,” Carolyn wrote. “They seem to like the part on the underside of the yellow flower.”
She sent proof!
“The chipmunk was very excited about eating that dandelion,” Carolyn related. “It took it apart and ate it in the middle of an open area, completely ignoring people taking photos of it. The chipmunk was most interested in eating whatever is beneath the blossom, near where it is attached to the stem.”
The two photos of the chipmunk were taken at the Colorado Moose Visitor Center in the mountains between Poudre Canyon and Walden, Colorado.
Carolyn is well-known for her stunning photography of South Padre Island’s water bird community. Now we know where she points her camera while away from her beloved beach — at the local wildlife — whether small or large!
Black Bear
“This photo is on my wall,” Carolyn related. “It was taken in the Canadian part of Glacier National Park. Numerous black bears were walking along the road eating dandelions as fast as possible while ignoring people and cars that were only a few feet away. It was around 2012.”
Clever house wren
“I can’t find the photo of the house wren, but I clearly remember what happened,” Carolyn wrote. “House wrens are about 4.5 inches long, which makes them shorter than the dandelions that were growing near our trailer last summer. I watched a wren try to reach the dandelion flower, which was too tall for it. After trying to reach the top of the dandelion by stretching its neck upward unsuccessfully, the bird devised a successful strategy. It pushed the stem of the dandelion down toward the ground with its foot and then walked up the stem until the blossom was on the ground. Then the bird began eating the bottom of the blossom.
“I don’t know exactly what it was eating,” Carolyn said. “Perhaps there were seeds or insects there. Whatever interested the wren seemed to be the same thing that interested the chipmunk (and maybe the bears in Canada),” she said.
Thank you Carolyn Cardile! That’s so exciting. And also incredibly interesting. And of course, leaves us with a few questions, so I asked Google why do animals eat dandelion flowers? I wasn’t rewarded with a fulfilling answer.
When I asked Google why bears eat dandelions, the website, wiseaboutbears.org, had an answer I thought was viable: “In spring, bears feed on willow catkins, grasses and dandelions, clover and aspen leaves. Leaves and flowers are preferred when they are highest in protein content (shortly after leaf burst or flowering), before the cell walls build up lignin and cellulose and become more difficult to digest — and that satisfactorily explained to me why Carolyn’s bears were snatching dandelion flowers as fast as they could! Animals are so smart!
In my Internet travels, I found a blog post, denglerimages.com that explained that not all black bears are black in color — some are brown or even blond.
Even though we don’t have common dandelions in the Valley, many of you may have the opportunity to travel to where they are commonly found. Here is some information you’re bound to need, especially if you visit farmer’s markets north of mid-Texas!
Although the early Gallic Normans who brought common dandelions to England around 1066 didn’t know it, dandelions are an exceptional source of iron, copper, potassium and other minerals, rivaling that of spinach and cabbage. They also are rich in calcium and magnesium, and a good source of vitamins A and C.
Back in the day, any monastery worth its salt had dandelions in its pharmacology — to treat anything from an abscess to a wart, including scurvy, according to the Weed Society of America. At that time, dandelions were known as dent-de-lion, French for tooth of the lion — probably in reference to the jagged leaf edges.
Dandelions are thought to have evolved about 30 million years ago in Eurasia. They have been used by humans for food and as an herb for much of recorded history, which began around the 10th and 11th centuries, but who’s counting, right?
As a food source, every part of the dandelion is edible for humans. The leaves are boiled like spinach or raw in salads, or made into a tea while the roots are peeled and sliced, roasted or fried. The root is dried and ground for a chicory-like coffee drink — and wasn’t it an ingredient in root beer and sarsaparilla? The seeds, sans plumes, can be eaten.
The yellow blossoms can be eaten deep fried or mixed into pancakes, cookies, jellies or wine — or eaten outright — apparently the raw blossoms can turn saliva into a startling yellow color for several minutes, a fun ice-breaker at your next garden party (if you’re north of central Texas).
Humans aside, game birds eat the dandelion seed heads while songbirds apparently separate the seeds from the fluff.
Pigs, goats and rabbits will eat the plant; the flowers provide nectar for honey bees, butterflies, beetles and moths. Grasshoppers, mites and fireflies also use dandelions as a food source.
Some of you may be familiar with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote, “What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.”
In the case of the common dandelion-cum weed, perhaps its virtues are in need of being rediscovered.
Thank you, Carolyn Cardile, for giving us another perspective of the virtues of the dandelion!
Love, love both of your dandelion posts! Dandelions are one of the first plants to pop up in spring, in regions with cold winters. For the nutritional reasons you gave above, even though folks didn’t know all of the words and minerals we know now, it was all but mandatory to eat the greens when they first came up in the spring. Folks had not eaten fresh produce for months at that time. Short in vitamin C sometimes to the point of scurvy, (and lots of other things!) any mom knew this is exactly what the family needed to eat. I have long loved dandelions, their history and human usage. Even though not a native plant, isn’t it marvelous how much this plant has benefited the animals and the rest of the natural world on this Continent? Good job, both!
Thank you! Your enthusiasm rivals mine almost, for this awesome plant! Great!