Taraxacum officinale (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Taraxacum officinale Weber

Family: Compositae

• Dandelion (En)
• Pissenlit, dent de lion (Fr)
• Indonesia: jombang
• Vietnam: bồ công anh, sư nha.

Native to Europe and continental, temperate Asia. It is a very common wild plant in temperate regions, distributed now all over the world. Sometimes it is cultivated.

Leaves are eaten as a vegetable. In temperate regions leaves are eaten raw or cooked, preferably blanched. Roots and flowers are edible as well. Dried, ground roots are used as a coffee substitute. Roots and leaves are also used medicinally.

• Perennial, stemless, polymorphous herb, up to 40 cm tall, with a long taproot, containing milky juice in all parts.
• Leaves in a radical rosette, very variable, oblong-spathulate or lanceolate-spathulate, 4-35 cm × 0.75-10 cm, irregularly pinnatilobed or pinnatipartite.

Not very common in the tropics and only at high altitudes (above 1200 m) where it can be cultivated as well. Propagation is by seed or by division. It prefers moist localities. Cultivars are available, e.g. "Amélioré Géant". The wild species forms a polyploid complex with enormous variability.

7, 15, 65, 66.