1024 LEONTODON. {CLASS XIX, ORDER I. 
GENUS VI. LEONTO'DON.—Liyn. Dandelion. 
Nat. Ord. Composi’tz. Juss. 
Grn. Cuan. Involucrum imbricated, the outer scales frequently lax 
and flaccid. Receptacle naked. Fruit with a very long slender 
beak. Pappus feathery, persistent, hairy—Name from «ov, 
a lion ; and odovs, a tooth ; in reference to the tooth-like division 
of the leaves. 
1. L. Taraxa'cum, Linn. (Fig. 1199.) Common Dandelion. Fruit 
linear, obovate, striated, and rough, with elevated points ; leaves 
smooth, oblong, or linear lanceolate, pinnatifido-runcinatus, and 
toothed or simply toothed ; involucre with the outer scales reflexed. 
English Botany, t. 510—English Flora, vol. iii. p. 349.—Hooker, 
British Flora, ed. 4. vol. i. p. 292.—Lindley, Synopsis, p. 157.— 
Taraxacum, Juss. 
P. palustris. Involucre with the outer scales, erect, appressed. 
L. palustris —English Botany, t. 553.—English Flora, vol. iii. p. 
350.—Lindley, Synopsis, p 157. 
foot long, tapering, fleshy, abounding in a milky juice. Leaves 
all radical, numerous, spreading, smooth and shining, oblong, or 
linear lanceolate, tapering into a footstalk, unequally divided into 
deep toothed lobes, pointing downwards, or divided into simple 
lobes in a pinnatifid manner. Scape single, or several, cylindrical, 
smooth, hollow, naked, brittle, as long or longer than the leaves, 
erect. Flowers solitary, about two inches across, a bright yellow, the 
outer ones often crimson externally. Jnvolucre of linear oblong 
scales, the outer ones smallest, erect, or reflexed, smooth, often wavy. 
Florets linear, obiuse, finely toothed at the end. fruit linear, 
obovate, the apex abruptly contracted, and tapering into a long 
slender awn, sub-compressed, striated, the outer stria above scaly, and 
below rough, with elevated points. Pappus fine, feathery, spreading. 
Habitat.—Meadows and pasture, &c.; very common. #. wet 
meadows and pastures. 
Perennial; flowering all the summer. 
The word Dandelion appears to be a corruption of the French 
Dent-de lion. The young spring leaves of the Dandelion are gathered 
in Italy and France, and used as a salad; but unless they are 
gathered very young, they are bitter and tough. They are in those 
countries, as well as in other parts of the Continent, cultivated and 
blanched in the spring for salad, and the long fleshy roots are used 
as a culinary vegetable, cooked in the same manner as the Salsafy 
and Scorzonera. The roots are also dried and prepared as a sub- 
stitute for coffee, and seem equally as good for that purpose as those 
of ‘chicory. As a medicine the roots have been long used, either 
nade into an infusion, or formed into an extract, which has sometimes 
