All through the summer, and during spring and autumn as well, our meadows and waste places are thickly dotted with the bright-yellow flowers of the common weed called the dandelion. And even throughout the winter the leaves of this hardy plant remain green. Let us dig up a dandelion, root and all, and examine it; for though it is only a weed, we can learn from it many things about the life of plants.

The root is long, thick, and tapering, and it has many small fibres or rootlets growing from its sides and from the end. The root of a plant, as you already know, fixes the plant in the ground, and its fibres suck in food for the plant out of the soil. But the root of the dandelion does more than this: it stores up in its thick part much food for the use of the plant, to help it in producing its flowers and seeds.

The dandelion has no long stem or trunk, but from the top of the root a number of green leaves spread out and form a rosette. These leaves have broad points and very jagged edges. The side of each leaf looks a little like the jaw of a lion, and our name dandelion comes from the French name of this plant, which means "lion's tooth. "

These curious leaves are not flat. Their edges curve upwards, so that each leaf forms an open water-pipe. When rain falls, the leaves carry the refreshing water to the centre of the rosette, and pour it down among the roots. If you look at other plants, you will find many of them with leaves that gather the rain-water in this way and carry it to the roots.