Plant · P-300

Dandelion

Taraxacum officinale

Dandelion is a deep-taprooted rosette that mines minerals from a meter down and stores them in a form shallower-rooted plants can use. Every part is edible - the leaves make a serious green (milder in winter, when they lose most of their bitterness), the root roasts into a coffee substitute, and the flowers go into wine or fritters. It also releases ethylene gas, which stunts nearby seedlings and ripens fruit early on a tree it grows beneath - useful as a placed, unsprayable herbicide against other weeds, but a reason to keep it out of a nursery bed or under fruit you want to hang on the branch.