One of my favourite study subjects is all over the news this week! Yet, it is a bit in an unusual manner: I am talking about the dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), the symbol of the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest!
There is not much that I have to do with the Eurovision, except that they chose the dandelion for its well-known ability to spread super fast with its tiny little parachutes.
Let that be exactly the reason why they are so interesting for me as well: they use their tiny parachutes to stay at the forefront of climate change ànd to invade new ranges all over the world!
Or as they say it themselves: “most people can relate to it. It has an enormous growth potential, it is widespread across Europe and it can move”. They do let the parachutes fly in reverse, though, back to the mother plant, which rarely happens in my research, but let us just be happy for the little plant’s week of fame.
Wonderful!
ah! the ubiquitous dandelion – reviled weed but great survivor. It seems it has learned the lesson of ‘adapt or die’. Locally it is certainly thriving. We may as well love them because, try as we might, we cannot, it would appear, eradicate them !
Fully agree with you! If we’d need an example of a species ‘winning at life’, the dandelion would be our man 🙂