50 Popular Studies of California Wild Floivers 



wise little plant, and its virtues are many in spite of the fact that it 

 is considered such a pest in the East and is the despair of town 

 people, whose lawns it will persist in occupying. 



Professor Baily, of Cornell University, said that dandelions in 

 his lawn were a great trouble to him until he learned to love them 

 and then the sight of them gave him keenest pleasure. Mrs. Anna 

 B. Comstock, of Cornell, in her handbook of Nature Study, gives a 

 valuable illustration of this plant's tenacious hold on life. She says : 

 "One spring when all the vegetables in my garden were callow 

 weaklings, I found there, in their midst, a dandelion rosette, with 

 ten great leaves spreading out and completely shading a circle ten 

 inches in diameter ; I said, 'Look here, Madame, this is my garden !' 

 and I pulled up the squatter. But I could not help paying admiring 

 tribute to the tap-root, which lacked only an inch of being a foot in 

 length. It was smooth, whitish, fleshy and, when cut, bled a milky 

 juice showing that it was full of food ; and it was as strong from 

 the end-pull as a whip-cord; it also had a bunch of rather fine 

 rootlets about an inch below the surface of the soil and an occasional 

 rootlet farther down ; and then I said, 'Madame, I beg your pardon ; 

 I think this was your garden and not mine/ ' ; 



The Eastern variety is not so common on this Coast, except 

 that it is very fond of damp lawns ; and it always seems to find a 

 way to get ahead of us. Strangely enough, on lawns, it blossoms 

 on stems so short that the lawn mower often cannot cut it. But 

 if "given an inch" it "takes an ell," or indeed, if banished from the 

 lawn, the whole roadside. When blooming in the meadows or high 

 grasses, this brave plant, with uncanny foresight, will grow until 

 it often towers above its neighbors. Specimens have been found 

 nearly three feet high; their bright yellow blossoms, richly laden 

 with sweets, were bound to attract winged visitors, which assist in 

 pollenization and illustrate the interdependence between vegetable 

 and insect life. 



Stock will not eat dandelions ; that is one of the clever ways 

 this intelligent plant has of preventing itself from becoming exter- 

 minated. It has gathered the acrid juices from the ground, which 

 are distasteful to cattle. Unless its exceedingly long and strong 

 tap-roots are cut deeply, the plant keeps sending up new and more 

 vigorous growths, and its round mass of feathery down is quickly 

 scattered by the winds and other carriers to the four parts of the 

 earth. Its seeds are wellnigh indestructible. 



More than one hundred thousand pounds of dried dandelion 

 roots (Taraxacum) are imported annually from Europe for medi- 

 cinal purposes notwithstanding its abundance in this country; to 

 make gathering pay, cheap labor must be employed. As a remedy, 

 it has been used for consumption, for fever, for liver troubles and 

 as a drink to improve the complexion. Indians had a high regard 

 for its medicinal qualities. They also devoured great quantities of 

 the plants for food. The Iroquois Indians would search for days 

 for them and it is stated that the amount one Indian would consume 

 both in the raw state and cooked, is almost beyond belief. It is a 

 common sight in this country to see foreigners gathering dancle- 



