Dandelions and nutrition

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. After finishing at Clemson I wanted to go to Cornell, considered one of the nation’s best schools for agriculture. But hearing about the weather in Ithaca changed my mind. However, when Cornell investigates something, you can bet the farm on it. It seemed strange to me that dandelions didn’t come to North America until the early colonists arrived; Cornell says they were here before, but people coming to the New World didn’t know that, so they brought dandelion seeds with them so they’d have a source of those vitamin-rich greens. The common dandelion is strange combination of two different parents, dandelions don’t reproduce sexually; no pollination is needed for the seeds to be produced. Maybe that’s why dandelion pollen isn’t as nearly so nutritious as that from other plants.