Dandelions!

Greetings friends!

I wanted to talk about one of my favorite flowers...DANDELIONS! They are just everywhere! They are such a beautiful yellow, too. Did you know dandelions can tell you the weather? Dandelion flowers close up when it's under 50 degrees. They open when the temperature is above. When you see some open and some close you know it's right around 50. They are so helpful!

Dandelions are a very old organism (genetically speaking), they are thought to have evolved about 30 million years ago! They are genetically prepared for any type of environement they are thrown into. This means that the genetic information that is in the dandelions in youur yard is 30 millions years old!  That's amazing. Most organisms alive today aren't fortunate enough to have won the lottery with their genes. Dandelions are one tough flower!

Here's a picture of me holding a dandelion flower and then a dandelion that has gone to seed. Dandelions are really special because they can reproduce asexually. That means they can basically just clone themselves. That's awesome! No wonder there are so many!

Dandelions are part of the sunflower family. Sometimes its referred to as the Aster family. All members  of this family have developed composit flowers. This means that one flower head is actually comprised of many individual flowers. I pulled apart a dandelion to show you here.

See how there are little green bases in the flower for each whitish - yellow part? If you pulled out on of those little green pods at the bottom of the yelllow you would be pulling out one flower! Since we are talking about little flowers that make up a big flower we call each of those little flowers florets. This may sounds a little confusing so I would recommend going out and pullin a part a dandelion for yourself.

Dandelions are an amazing flower that has stood the test of time. They are so much fun to pick and so much fun to make wishes on! The next time you see a dandelion say "Thanks for being you!"

Until next time my friends,
Eco