| Scientific Name: | Taraxacum officinale |
| Common Name: | dandelion |
| Family Name: | Asteraceae |
| Origin: | Europe |
| Hardiness Zone: | Zone 4: (-34 to -29 °C) |
| Plant Type: | Herbaceous perennial, Weed (horticultural) |
| Mature Size: | 0.1 - 0.2m x 0.1 - 0.3m (height x width) |
| Habit: | Spreading, Upright |
| Form: | Creeping / Mat-like |
| Texture: | Medium |
| Landscape Uses: | Attract beneficial insects, Herb, Medicinal plant, Wildlife food |
| Exposure: | Full sun, Part sun/part shade |
| Soil or Media: | Rocky or gravelly or dry |
| Leaves: | Simple, Basal, Soft flexible, Pinnate venation, Glabrous, Lustrous, Oblanceolate, Oblong, Dentate, Pinnately lobed |
| Flowers: | Head (capitulum), Yellow, Mar-Apr-May-Jun-Jul-Aug-Oct |
| Fruit: | Cypsela (achene + calyx), Green-yellow, Brown, Silver, Apr-May-Jun-Jul-Aug-Sep |
| Key ID Features: | |
| Common weed exuding a milky latex when broken; leaves basal, most narrowly oblong-oblanceolate, most 4-40cm long x 1-8cm wide, pinnately lobed with tips arching towards centre of plant; flower heads 4-6cm wide, ray and disk florets yellow, peduncle pale green, thick, fleshy and hollow, most 5-40cm tall; cypsela white, like a furry ball of seeds. | |