Dandelion

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)

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The head of seed is also known as a blowball.

From Culpeper's Complete Herbal and English Physician (abridged)

Dandelion (Dandelyon)

Vulgarly called piss-a-beds.
Description. This is well known to have many long and deeply gashed leaves, lying on the ground round about the head of the root; the ends of each gash or jag on both sides, looking downwards toward the roots; the middle rib being white, which being broken yields abundance of bitter milk, but the root much more: from among the leaves, which always abide green, arise many slender, weak, naked foot-stalks, every one of them bearing at the top one large yellow flower, consisting of many rows of yellow leaves, broad at the points and nicked in with deep spots of yellow in the middle, which growing ripe, the green husk wherein the flowers stood turns itself down to the stalk, and the head of down becomes as round as a ball: with long reddish seed underneath, bearing a part of the down on the head of every one, which together is blown away with the wind, or may be at once blown away with ones mouth. The root growing downwards exceeding deep, which being broken off within the ground, will shoot forth again, and will hardly be destroyed where it hath once taken deep root in the ground.
Place. It grows frequently in all meadows and pasture grounds.
Time. It flowers in one place or other almost all the year long.
Virtues and Use. It is under the dominion of Jupiter. It is of an opening and cleansing quality, and therefore very effectual for the obstructions of the liver, gall, and spleen, and the diseases that arise from them, as the jaundice, and hypochondriacal passion. It opens the passages of the urine both in young and old. It powerfully cleanses imposthumes and inward ulcers in the urinary passages, and by its drying and temperate quality doth afterwards heal them; for which purpose the decoction of the roots or leaves in white wine, or the leaves chopped as pot-herbs, with a few alisanders, and boiled in their broth, is very effectual. And whoever is drawing towards a consumption, or an evil disposition of the whole body, called Cachexia, by the use hereof for some time together, shall find a wonderful help. It helps also to procure rest and sleep to bodies distempered by the heat of ague-fits, or otherwise: the distilled water is effectual to drink in pestilential fevers, and to wash the sores.

You see here what virtues this common herb has, and that is the reason you French and Dutch so often eat them in the spring: and now, if you look a little farther, you may see plainly, without a pair of spectacles, that foreign physicians are not so selfish as ours are, but more communicative of the virtues of plants to people.

View the original Culpeper text here

Dandelions in Literature

Emily Dickinson 1830 - 1886

The Dandelion's pallid tube

Astonishes the Grass,

And Winter instantly becomes

An infinite Alas -

The tube uplifts a signal Bud

And then a shouting Flower, -

The Proclamation of the Suns

That sepulture is o'er.

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