Taraxacum officinale (dandelion), medical herb, culinary use
Commonly known as the dandelion, Taraxacum officinale has many culinary and medicinal uses, despite being generally regarded as a weed. As you can see the bee finds it very delicious :) ! The Dandelion is at home in all parts of the north temperate zone, in pastures, meadows and on waste ground, and is so plentiful that farmers everywhere find it a troublesome weed, for though its flowers are more conspicuous in the earlier months of the summer, it may be found in bloom, and consequently also prolifically dispersing its seeds, almost throughout the year.
All parts of the plant contain a somewhat bitter, milky juice (latex), but the juice of the root being still more powerful is the part of the plant most used for medicinal purposes (diuretic, tonic and slightly aperient). It is a general stimulant to the system, but especially to the urinary organs, and is chiefly used in kidney and liver disorders.
vernacular names for the dandelion include 'wet-the-bed' and 'pissy-beds', which refer to the belief that just touching part of a dandelion can cause bed-wetting. Dandelion fruiting heads are familiar to children as dandelion clocks, which are used to 'tell the time' by the number of blows taken to remove the fruits (for this reason dandelions are often known as 'blowballs' in the USA)
Technical characteristics of the picture are:
- it is available at the maximum size of 6016 x 4000 pix.(24,2 Mpix.)/ 50.94 x 33.87 cm/ 20.05 x 13.33 inch, with excellent quality in 14.3 MB;
- it has an ISO of 400 with no noise, f/9, bit depth 24, compressed bits/pixel 4;
- it's horizontal and vertical resolution is of 300 dpi.
The picture is royalty free commercial use. Purchased image doesn't have "copyright" label on. It can be resized at request.
Author: Daniela Temneanu
Date: 06.04.2014
Enjoy!