NYT: Dandelion: A Tenacious Beauty

"The source of the name “dandelion” is probably a corruption of the French “dent de lion,” or the Latin “dens leonis” — lion’s tooth. It takes only a little bit of imagination to see the pointy tines of each leaf as a tooth. But there is room for skepticism. For one, the leaves are soft and, especially when young, delightfully edible. It seems as if any peasant could easily find truly nasty “lion’s teeth” on the common thistle, whose fibrous, dagger-tipped leaves have some real bite, and which frequently calls the dandelion, neighbor." (read more)