Dandelion

A perennial flowering plant, Taraxacum officinale, common to all temperate regions, with the greatest varieties native to Europe and Asia. It has occasionally been cultivated on a small scale and has been used as a novelty and in emergencies as a green vegetable, probably since prehistory. The leaves can be eaten raw in salads or cooked like spinach. Dandelion wine is made from the flowers. The roots can be roasted to make a coffee substitute (it was fairly popular in France during the Second World War); they're used in Japanese cuisine and give a magenta dye (the leaves can produce a brown dye as well).

The botanical name is clouded by two opposing theories. Some believe that Taraxacum comes from the Persian tark hashgun, meaning "wild endives", while others believe that the name is derived from the Greek taraxos, meaning "disorder", and akos, meaning "remedy." The common name is derived from the French dent-de-lion, meaning "lion's tooth", referring to its saw-toothed leaves. In France, it's also called pissenlit ("wet the bed"), a reference to its supposed diuretic properties. The plant name first appeared in the 10th-century medical journals of Arabian physicians. By the 16th century, British apothecaries, who called the plant herba taraxacon or herba urinara (for its diuretic ability), considered dandelion an important and valuable drug.

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