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.