Plant enthusiasts and plant lovers know that referring to certain plants as “weeds” often feels like an arbitrary degradation of an important and valuable botanical. After all, who gets to decide what is weed and what isn't? And why should they be so abused? Because they are elastic? Generous? Uncontrollable? (If so, I'd say we could all stand to be inspired by them sometimes). Our profound misunderstanding of weeds is particularly unfortunate because many of them offer us a variety of nutritional and medicinal benefits that are, quite literally, ripe for the picking. No plant exemplifies this dynamic better than dandelion.
