Yellow Flowers Print #7: Dandelion Flower In Fern Trees

The Dandelion flower is a very common and yet a wondrous flower. Its joyful yellow petals radiate in all directions as if to show us how happy it is. The symmetry of this particular flower is astoundingly perfect. It is also rare to see the dandelion flower grown in the middle of ferns trees, as ferns usually like a the dark moist environment of the rain forest. The contrast between the bright yellow of the dandelion flower and the deep greens of the fern trees brings a surreal feeling to this photograph.

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Poem To the Dandelion

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,
First pledge of blithesome May,
Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold,
High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they
An Eldorado in the grass have found,
Which not the rich earth's ample round
May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me
Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be.

Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow
Through the primeval hush of Indian seas,
Nor wrinkled the lean brow
Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease;
'Tis the Spring's largess, which she scatters now
To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand,
Though most hearts never understand
To take it at God's value, but pass by
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye.

Thou art my tropics and mine Italy;
To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime;
The eyes thou givest me
Are in the heart, and heed not space or time:
Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee
Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment
In the white lily's breezy tent,
His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first
From the dark green thy yellow circles burst.

Then think I of deep shadows on the grass,
Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze,
Where, as the breezes pass,
The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways,
Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass,
Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue
That from the distance sparkle through
Some woodland gap, and of a sky above,
Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move.

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee;
The sight of thee calls back the robin's song,
Who, from the dark old tree
Beside the door, sang clearly all day long,
And I, secure in childish piety,
Listened as if I heard an angel sing
With news from heaven, which he could bring
Fresh every day to my untainted ears
When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.

How like a prodigal doth nature seem,
When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!
Thou teachest me to deem
More sacredly of every human heart,
Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam
Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,
Did we but pay the love we owe,
And with a child's undoubting wisdom look
On all these living pages of God's book.

James Russell Lowell [1819-1891]

Source: "The Home Book of Verse," by Burton Stevenson

Information About Dandelion Flower

The common dandelion is probably the most maligned, by adults, of all wild flowers, because of its proliferation in people's lawns as an unwanted weed. Yet, as small children, we recognized its beauty and picked them for our mothers as a loving gift.

The height of the dandelion can range from as little as two inches to nearly a foot and a half. Even without its well known flower, its oblong and toothed leaf rosettes are also easily identified. The dandelion flower is atop a single stem rising from the base of the leaf rosette. In the Spring, the dandelion leaves are tender and are a great addition to salads, or they can be cooked as are other greens. The roots can be washed, dried and ground, and steeped in hot water to make a coffee-like drink. In the past, the milky sap from the stem was used to remove warts.

The name "dandelion" is a corruption of the original French name given it by early botanists, who thought the sharp projections from the borders of the leaves resembled the teeth of a lion (dent de lion).
The dandelion is a member of the Composite family and can have as many as 150 - 200 ray flowers around its central core. Dandelions bloom from March through October.

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