By Tom Schweich
Since it is still hot and dry around Golden, indulge me, please, if I stay in the high country for another episode of “What’s Blooming …”.
Most of us are familiar with dandelions, especially the non-native Common Dandelion we have in Golden – Taraxacum officinale F. H. Wigg Both the common name of “dandelion” and its first scientific name Leontodon refer to the lobes on the leaves that resemble lion’s teeth. See the inset above. “Dandelion” or “lion’s teeth” comes from the French “dent de lion” and Leontodon means the same, except in in Greek.
Dandelions are found world-wide and there are over 250 species of dandelion in the Netherlands, a country much smaller than our state of Colorado. Meanwhile we have three species of native dandelions in Colorado.
I was in the subalpine areas of Lake County last week. “Subalpine” refers to the landscape just below the tree line at elevations of 9,000 to 11,000 feet. In two separate meadows crowded with many different plants in bloom, I found one of our native dandelions – Taraxacum ceratophorum (Lebed.) DC., commonly called the “Northern Dandelion.” One meadow was along the North Fork of Lake Creek by Colorado Highway 82. The other meadow was at the mouth of a small unnamed gulch just north of Leadville.
Our plant is called the Northern Dandelion because it is found around the world at northern latitudes. In fact, it was first described from plants found in the Altai Mountains of Kazakhstan by Carl von Ledebour (1829), in his 5-volume book called Icons [illustrations] of new or incompletely known plants illustrating the Russian flora, especially the Altaic.
It is easy to dismiss our native Northern Dandelions as non-native common ones unless you get down on your hands and knees and look carefully at the flowerheads and leaves. The Northern Dandelion has a bulkier flowerhead and leaves without the lion’s teeth.
