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Make A Wish - Sydenham Hill Wood, South London, England - Sunday May 11th 2008.

Dandelions evolved about thirty million years ago in Eurasia. They were used by humans for food and herbalism for much of recorded history.

Origin of the name The English name dandelion is a corruption of the French dent de lion meaning lion's tooth, referring to the coarsely-toothed leaves. The names of the plant have the same meaning in several other European languages, such as Italian dente di leone, Spanish diente de león, Portuguese dente-de-leão, Norwegian Løvetann, and German Löwenzahn. In modern French the plant is named pissenlit, which means "urinate in bed", apparently referring to its diuretic properties. Likewise, "pissabeds" is an English folkname for this plant, piscialletto in Italian and in Spanish it is known as the meacamas. Also, in the dialect of Veneto, Italy, it is known as pisacan, which translates to "dog pisses", referring to how common they are found at the side of pavements (source: Giulia Zanetti, native of Veneto), and in the dialect of Novara, Italy, it is known as soffiando, which translates to "blowing", and refers to the habit of blowing the seeds from the stalk (source: Silvia Paracchini, native of Novara). In Turkish the dandelion is called karahindiba meaning "black endive". Hungarian names are kutyatej ("dog milk", referring to the white sap found in the stem) and gyermekláncfű ("child's chain grass", referring to the habit of children to pick dandelions, remove the flowers, and make links out of the stems by "plugging" the narrow top end of the stem into the wider bottom end).