This past week, I’ve been knee-deep in my craft room making flowers. I’ve made crepe paper flowers before, but these are on a whole new level: Giants, to be precise. So far, I’ve made three giant daisies that stand about two metres tall and two of four dandelions in different phases or similar size.
Dandelions are something everyone knows – you’ve seen them, you may have been irritated by their invasiveness in a garden, but honestly, have you ever stopped to look at them? In this project, I’ve needed to look at them in detail – where do the leaves sit on the stem? What colour is the stem? How do the bud leaves fall from the bloom? When does the yellow turn into white fuzzy parachutes?
I found a year-long timelapse of the growth of a dandelion, from seed to seedhead; click on the image below to watch the 3:46-minute video. What I find fascinating is the animation of plants that are only seen when we view them sped up; they stretch, move and grow – the movement is coming from the plant itself as this video was made in a controlled environment (no wind involved).
The edible plant has been used for centuries as a leafy green, leaf, flower or root tea, medicine, and as a source of nutrition for animals such as horses or ruminates (herbivorous grazing animals, such as cattle or deer). It’s an important plant for pollinators as it’s often the earliest flowering plant. For more information about its many uses, check out the Wikipedia article linked here. For a short but informative (and entertaining) video about the lion’s tooth, dent de lion, click here.
The next time you’re outside enjoying nature, stop and moment and appreciate the humble, often overlooked flower! And make yourself a dandelion salad.
Stephanie Huesler 