Dandelion not lowly

Press, 26 August 1986, Page 16

Dandelion not lowly

Have you ever blown a dandelion to tell the time? You count the number of times you have to puff to blow away all of the seeds, and the number of puffs it takes to blow them all away is supposed to be the hour of the day. Legend has it that the future can be told through various puffs of a dandelion. One version is that if you blow with one big puff, then count the seeds remaining, the number will be the same as the number of children you will have. There are others.

Whether you care to believe them is one thing. Another is that the humble dandelion — which usually forms a perfect circle — has through the ages been considered as the ingredient for various cures and tonics. The juice of the dandelion has been used to make warts disappear. The Irish thought it a cure for heart disease, and the English concocted a brew that helped rheumatism. Another belief was that a dandelion picked on midsummer’s eve would ward off witches. They have been served !

as a vegetable, and raw in salads are said to be an important source of vitamin A. The root also can be roasted and brewed to make a kind of coffee. Thought to have originated in central Asia, the dandelion — the “Taraxacum officinale” — a weed that grows world-wide, has also been used in symbolic ways. It has portrayed grief and was used by early Flemish painters in pictures of the crucifixion. At the other extreme, it has symbolised the sun and coquetry.