Everyday, on the teevee, I see commercials advertising weedkillers. And the most unpopular weed is the Dandelion. People all over this great nation, are obsessed with the sterile, uniformity of endless clones of grass blades. Like little green soldiers with no end. They want a pile like velvet.
The dandelion screws all that up with it's broad, toothed leaves and it's bright yellow, happy face. The audacity of cheerfulness, daring to show itself in what is clearly a perpetual grass-blade, uniform inspection. You smiling at me Sunshine?
Well I have bad news for you Sunshine!
The dandelion, like that person who is way too chipper in the early morning, must die.
And so this, is the root of the belief that a dandelion is a worthless weed that is better off dead. It must be eradicated by herbicides, that turn boy frogs into girl frogs, and that eventually contaminate the soil to such a degree, that you cannot even use your grass clippings for compost.
Even the British like to kill dandelions.
But is the dandelion useless? Not really. First of all, it's edible. But most importantly, the dandelion is an early source of nectar and pollen for pollinators in the spring and during, what are known as dearths. We had a dearth last year in Oklahoma and Texas. That is where there are literally no flowers. When everything else is dead or dormant, often the dandelion is going strong, at least for a little while. Though last year's extreme drought knocked even the dandelions back for a time.
Best of all, unlike the glyphosphate that is often used to kill them, dandelions do not cause fetal defects in humans, or amphibians.
Along with the problem of herbicide-resistant weeds, health-related alarms have been raised by several scientists.
In January, well-known plant pathologist and retired Purdue University professor Don Huber sent a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack warning of tests that indicated glyphosate could be contributing to spontaneous abortions and infertility in pigs, cattle and other livestock.
Scientists in Argentina last year published a study saying glyphosate caused malformations in frog and chick embryos.
Other scientists, both from private institutions and from the federal government, have said research shows harmful effects of glyphosate products on soil organisms, on plants, and on certain animals. A 2008 lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity said glyphosate was harmful to California's red-legged frog and the EPA subsequently agreed it was "likely to adversely affect" the frog.
The Institute of Science in Society has called for a global ban on glyphosate, citing research showing the chemical has "extreme toxicity," including indications it can cause birth defects. It also submitted a report to EPA. Reuters
It also damages trees.
So why go to all this trouble to kill a useful, tiny, pretty little flower?
My vote goes for Vanity.
When I look back at my photo-archives, I notice that most of my dandelion pictures are taken between March and April. Though this year I do have some in February. After May, the dandelions seem to be less numerous in the heat and are replaced or overgrown by other flowers, like tickseed, fleabane and that green milkweed from the previous diary.
So basically, next to daffodils, and redbuds, dandelions are one of the first flowers I see in the spring. And one that is very popular with the local insect fauna as a food source.
Check out this Syrphid fly:
Also called a flower fly or hover fly. It's a tiny parasite and considered a wasp mimic. You want these little guys around because they parasitize aphids and thrips. You can read more about them at wikipedia.
Syrphids come in a variety of shapes and sizes. The following syrphid is quite a bit bigger.
Locally, we call these Drone Flies, because they look so much like a honeybee drone.
This is what an actual honeybee drone looks like, to give you an idea of their similarities. A honeybee drone is a male. Their eyes are very large, which is one of the key characteristics that makes them different from a honeybee worker [which are females]. With the larger eyes, they have a more fly-like appearance. They are also larger, fatter around their abdomen, and drones have no stingers.
This next one is still larger and is in a different genus of drone fly--Eristalis.
This one is also commonly called a drone fly. As larvae, these are called rat tailed maggots which live in stagnate water.
It lives in stagnant, oxygen-deprived water, with a high organic content. It is fairly tolerant of pollution and can live in sewage lagoons and cesspools.[1]
I have found them in compost buckets that were left out in the rain. The adults are very pretty, and pollinate a variety of flowers. I often see these flower-flies first in the spring, before anything else.
Honey bees like dandelions, because as stated before, this is an early food source, and because this flower will bloom in adverse conditions.
Last year, this was one of the last flowers to die back during the drought. This flower is considered a mediocre food source, but it is better than nothing. See the article: Honey Bees Cannot Survive on dandelions Alone.
It's a filler plant. A side dish between main courses, but in the absence of those favored, richer nectar and pollen sources, it's a plant that can ensure survival of a variety of pollinators during a difficult season.
Here is a sweat bee visiting a dandelion. Bear with me here, but I believe this is an Agapostemon. However all IDs are tentative. Bees can be harder to tell apart, for the lay person than you ever knew. Even though this is called a sweat bee, Agapostemon are not attracted to human sweat. But they do look a lot like other green sweat bees that are. These are ground dwelling bees, that live in burrows. These are short tongued bees, but what I have observed is that these are small enough, that they can fit into some deep flowers and almost disappear inside of them up to their thorax. I see them going inside my catnip blooms frequently.
The photo below shows a pink spotted ladybug on a dandelion.
We see a lot of ladybugs on dandelions in the early spring. I have noticed that if we are about to get a heavy rain, that the ladybugs will climb up the flower stalks and perch on the underside of the taller flowers in the yard. This photo is a couple years old, I haven't seen a Pink Spotted Lady bug in my yard, or in this area directly for about 2 years. Why? I have no idea. We do see lots of 7 spotted lady bugs and convergent lady bugs, and a a few Asian ladybugs. In fact, for many years, I was unaware that this was a lady bug. Better yet, this is one of our native North American beetles. So it is actually supposed to be here. Like other ladybugs, this one eats aphids.
It has been found experimentally that interplanting a crop susceptible to aphid attack with a flowering plant such as the dandelion, Taraxacum officinale, encouraged predation on aphids because the spotted lady beetles were attracted to their pollen-rich flowers. qtd by Wikipedia
What this means is that dandelions are
insectary plants like marigolds or borage.
The next photo is of a tiny bee visiting a dandelion. I suspect that it is a Lasioglossum [another sweat bee]
These bees are also ground dwelling, and prefer loose, sandy soils. Even though these might be the most numerous bees in a habitat, many people do notice them because these bees are so small.
The next photo is of what I believe to be a Digger Bee visiting a dandelion. See Andreninae
We see this sort of bee a lot in the early spring, frequently on sand plum flowers and redbuds.
The picture is of a cuckoo bee:
This is from the subfamily Nomada. Often you will see them referred to simply as Nomada. These bees lay their eggs in the nests of other bees and are known as cleptoparasites.
Many people would confuse cuckoo bees with wasps, because they are not fuzzy, their bodies are more streamlined and angular, and their striping and coloration looks more like a wasp, and less like the friendlier, rounded appearance of bees. These critters are very cool, I have amassed quite a collection of photos of various cuckoo bees.
You can read more about Cuckoo Bees at this site from California.
So maybe you are not like me, and are willing to, or able to allow your yard to succumb to clover and dandelions. Perhaps you would consider saving a sizable patch?
Dandelions are not going to give you cancer nor cause birth defects in babies or froglets, nor kill earthworms, or beneficial soil microbes. They do not pollute the air or soil. Dandelions are simply an important, early spring, pollen and nectar source for a variety of pollinators. And a stand in, when other foods have dried up or failed to bloom. They are bright and cheerful and you can mow them just like grass and they will keep coming back and feeding the insect world for as long as you let them.