On the road

I've been to London and back since my last blip was taken yesterday morning. Six hundred miles on the road, even though I'm not driving, is an irksome way to spend two days but necessary to get the Old Man down for Easter.

These dandelions were growing on a roundabout near Carmarthen. They don't mind the proximity to traffic so life on the roadside suits them as well as in a meadow or in your garden. Already the first cycle of bud/flower/seed head has taken place and many more will follow.

Pissenlit in French, just like our old name pissabed, shows that the plant's diuretic properties were highly valued by the old herbalists. More correctly, it was regarded as a 'deobstruent':

It is of an opening and cleansing quality, and therefore very effectual for the obstructions of the liver, gall and spleen, and the diseases that arise from them . . . it opens the passages of the urine in both young and old; powerfully cleanses imposthumes and inward ulcers in the urinary passage, and by its drying and temperate quality doth afterwards heal them. (Nicholas Culpeper 1653)

The quality of opening what is blocked makes the dandelion's fondness for the roadside oddly appropriate.

You can eat young, clean, dandelion leaves in salad, use the dried roots to make a form of mock coffee or enjoy being 'stoned all the time' on Dandelion Wine along with the Hollies.

No time for comments I'm afraid - apologies.