Taraxacum - 'A very difficult genus of a multitude forms, which set seed without pollinating, and never, therefore, interbreed.' An Irish Flora by D A Webb, Sc.D. 1977.
Every child knows these bright yellow perennials of the roadsides and grassy, waste places, with their wonderful heads of flowers borne, from March to October, on hollow stems full of sticky white sap. Consisting of strap-shaped florets which close over during cloudy weather and at night time, these flower heads (25-50mm across) progress to become 'Jenny Joes' or 'Dandelion Clocks' – spheres of miniature parachutes, each one attached to a little seed. The leaves are responsible for the flower's common name – Dents de lion (lion's teeth) – as they are deeply lobed in a basal rosette. These are native plants belonging to the family Asteraceae.
I first identified the Dandelion in 1949 in my mother's vegetable garden in Dundrum, Co Dublin and photographed it in Gibletstown, Co Wexford in 2005.
If you are satisfied you have correctly identified this plant, please submit your sighting to the National Biodiversity Data Centre
