Resilient Wish Maker

If you were to inquire about my favorite flower…

I might say dandelion.

Depressingly, I find that adults do not ask each other about their favorite flowers, colors, jams and jellies, constellations, cars, cartoons or ice cream flavors nearly as much as I spent my childhood preparing for. (And, obviously, prepare for still.)

Dandelions might seem an odd choice. Widely considered a weed (and even listed as a “noxious weed” in Manitoba) these wildflowers are hardy little perennials whose name comes from the French, dent de lion [1] which means “lion’s tooth’. It’s had many, many other names over the years: blowball, cankerworm, monk’s head, and (my favorite) piss-a-bed, which apparently refers to the plant’s diuretic properties and not—as I always heard—because it looked like a yellow stain.

There is a species native to Appalachia, the Dwarf Dandelion [2] or Krigia Montana but most of the dandelions we see in the US were brought over from Europe by settlers because all parts of the plant are edible or otherwise useful [3.] Young, tender greens can be eaten like salad (highly recommend with hot bacon grease dressing, ie- kilt salad [4]) and mature leaves and stems can be cooked the same as other greens. The flower petals can be used to make tisane or wine [6] or yellow dye and the roots can be roasted and ground to flour or drank like coffee [7].

On top of this outstanding list of usefulness, they are beautiful and, of course, they are magical.

I don’t remember the first time I heard about casting one’s wishes to the wind on the white tufted seeds of a dandelion. Likely, my mamma explained this magic to me when I was only a tiny baby. But it seems a thing I’ve always known, as if this is inborn, instinctual, animal knowledge.

The wish-bearing capability, however, isn’t what I love most about dandelions. What I love most is how hard they are to kill. How persistent. How tough and how vexing they are to persnickety lawn-lovers. I love that they bloom wherever they find themselves and maintain an infamous reputation of resilience and resistance.

The dandelion in the photo is one I found today, while on a walk around my neighborhood. I was surprised to see it, fluff still clinging to the seed head. After all, I live in a suburb of Los Angeles where the standard method of “gardening” is “mow and blow” and high winds are the norm this time of year. I picked this one carefully and shielded it from the breeze the whole way home.

Once I had my picture I took it back outside. And made my wish.