E are very dismissive of our more familiar wildflowers. Dandelions are mere troublesome weeds, their flowers too poor in spirit to produce a pleasant perfume: ‘Wild thyme and daisies its green bottom speck,/And dandelion’s vulgar stare illumes.’ ‘Vulgar’, as this snippet from a late-18th-century poem indicates, sums up the general view of this plant. Nevertheless, as well as admiring its beauty close up with my trusty loupe or attempting
