7 Surprising Facts About Dandelions
Updated: Apr. 24, 2020
Unexpectedly nutritious and tasty, dandelions have plenty of benefits.
- Pharmacists in 19th-century England made tea from roasted dandelion roots. The drink is still trendy today, thanks to a coffeelike taste and color without caffeine.
- A cup of chopped raw dandelion greens provides 112 percent of the daily requirement for vitamin A (at only 25 calories).
- From blossom to root, 100 percent of this weed, which is also an herb, is edible for most people.
- Dandelion flowers reach heights of 6 to 24 inches, and roots go as deep as 10 to 15 feet.
- Dandelions are part of the daisy family, one of the biggest in botany with more than 1,620 genera of plant types.
- A single dandelion head consists of up to 300 ray flowers that look like tiny petals at first glance.
- Ray Bradbury’s 1957 novel Dandelion Wine gets its title from the wine the characters make and drink in summer.
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Originally Published: March 21, 2017
