564 sturtevant's notes on edible plants 



and the Apaches of Arizona. In 1828, Fessenden ' says the wild plant is used by our 

 people but is never cultivated. In 1853, Mcintosh,' an English author, had never heard 

 of dandelions being cultivated. They are now extensively cultivated in France, and, in 

 1879, five varieties appeared in the French catalogs. 



Dandelions are blanched for use as a winter salad. They are now very largely grown 

 by our market gardeners, and Thorbum,' in 1881, offers seed of two sorts. In 187 1, four 

 varieties were exhibited at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society under the names of 

 the French Large-leaved, French Thick-leaved, Red-seeded and the American Improved. 

 Fearing Burr, who exhibited them, makes no mention of dandelions in his Garden Vege- 

 tables, 1866. The common name is a corruption of dent de lion, a word which is found in 

 the Welsh Dant y Llew of the thirteenth century. Its vernacular names in various lan- 

 guages have usually reference to the peculiar indentation of the leaves, or to some other 

 resemblance or character of the plant. By commentators, the dandelion has been identi- 

 fied with the aphake of Theophrastus, a in composition signifying absence of and phake, 

 lentils, or the name, perhaps, signifying that the plant can be used as a green before lentils 

 appear in the spring. The dandelion may be the ambubeia of Pliny and the name may 

 suggest the scattering of the seed, ambulo meaning the going backward and forward, but 

 some commentators assign this name to the wild endive or chicory; the hedypnois of Pliny 

 is but doubtfully identified with our dandelion and appears to be derived from two Greek 

 words signifying sweet breath and may refer to the sweet smell of the flowers. 



Bauhin, in his Pinax, 1623, enumerates two varieties of dandelion: one, the Dens 

 Leonis latiore filio, carried back in his sjmonymy to Brunselsius, 1539; the other. Dens 

 Leonis angustiore folio, carried back in like manner to Caesalpinus, 1583. The first kind, 

 he says, has a large and a mediimi variety, the leaves sometimes pointed, sometimes 

 obtuse. In the Flore Naturelle et Economique, Paris, 1803, the same varieties, apparently, 

 are mentioned, one with narrow leaves and the other with large and rounded leaves. In 

 Martyn's Miller's Dictionary, 1807, the leaves of the dandelion are said to vary from 

 pinnatifid or deeply rtmcinate in a very dry situation to nearly entire in a very moist one, 

 generally smooth but sometimes a little rough; and Leontodon palustris is described as 

 scarcely more than a variety, varying much in its leaves, which have few notches or are 

 almost entire, the plant smoother, neater, more levigated and more glaucous than the 

 common dandelion. 



In Geneva, New York, on the grounds of the New York Agricultural Experiment 

 Station, a large number of variations are to be commonly noted, both in the habit and 

 appearance of the plant and irrespective of difference of soil or exposure, as varieties may 

 readily be separated whose roots are intertwined. Some plants grow with quite erect 

 leaves, others with their leaves closely appressed to the soil; some have broad, others 

 narrow leaves; some have runcinate leaves, others leaves much cut and almost fringed 

 and yet others the leaves nearly entire; some have almost sessile leaves; some have 

 smooth leaves, others roughened leaves; some have thin, others thick leaves; some grow 



' Fessenden New Amer. Card. 98. 1828. {Leontodon taraxacom) 

 Mcintosh, C. Book Card. 2:166. 1855. 

 Thorbum Co/. 1881. 



