IN MANY parts of Europe and 
some parts of this country, especially around 
Boston, the dandelion is cultivated for 
“greens.” The French have produced many 
improved forms having large, curved, beauti¬ 
ful leaves. Crops are gathered and sold similar 
to the way in which spinach is marketed. . . . 
Poets pay tribute to the pretty dandelions 
that glisten in the sunshine. Helen Gray Cone 
refers to them as “a trooper band that sur¬ 
prised the hill upon a showery night and in 
the morning paraded their yellow coats on 
the green slopes.” James Russell Lowell, in 
addressing the dandelion says, “Dear com¬ 
mon flower, that grow’st beside the way. . . . 
thou art more dear to me than all the prouder 
summer blooms may be.” And Henry Ward 
Beecher refers to them as “those golden kisses 
all over the cheeks of the meadow, queerly 
called dandelions .” ... An early Algonquin 
tale gives this interesting story of the love of 
Shawondasee for the dandelion. One day as 
Shawondasee, the South Wind, was drowsily 
and lazily gazing over his broad fields, he saw 
a slender yellow haired girl at a distance whom 
he greatly admired, but his drowsiness kept 
him from calling her to his side. Day after 
day, he watched her across the green prairie 
and found her growing more beautiful. But 
one morning his eyes searched in vain for the 
maid with the golden crown; in place of her 
brightness and youth he saw a faded woman 
with a white head. Believing that during the 
night the cruel hand of his brother, the North 
Wind, had frosted her head white, Shawon¬ 
dasee wept and as he sighed mightily his 
breath scattered her white hair about and 
soon she disappeared. Others resembling her 
came to gladden the earth, but every spring 
Shawondasee never ceases to sigh for the 
yellow haired maiden he had first seen 
one day at sundown. 
