Tag Archives: The Vegetable Garden

Moss-leaved dandelion = Taraxacum tortilobum

I’ve been trying to find out what species the legendary moss-leaved dandelion (as featured in my book) and some other cultivated varieties actually are. I took the series of detailed pictures below of this plant last spring and posted them on the Dandelions of Britain and Ireland group (there are several experts of Taraxacum there including author of the Field Handbook to British and Irish Dandelions, John Richards)
Dutch expert Karst Meijer has ID’d the plant as Taraxacum tortilobum. We cannot be 100% sure that this is the original plant depicted in the Vegetable Garden (1920), but it makes sense that it was a wild plant that was domesticated as dandelion breeding is difficult as they are largely apomictic. T. tortilobum is found in the wild in northern France, which strengthens the theory that this is the plant. See https://www.gbif.org/species/5394131 where it is known as the twisted-lobed Dandelion.
The plant I grow which is the only line claiming to be the moss-leaved dandelion originated from IPK Gatersleben (German genebank) as Taraxacum sublacionosum “Delikatess” which it isn’t!

The mossy dandelion

It’s 100 years since Vilmorin-Andrieux’s The Vegetable Garden: Illustrations, descriptions, and culture of the garden vegetables of cold and temperate climates was published! The plant I most associate with this fantastic book is what I’ve called “The Legendary Moss-Leaved Dandelion”. I fell in love with the image of this variety of dandelion when I first saw it (see below) and I later blogged about how I sought after and was finally able to grow it myself here: https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=1193
There was even a T-shirt printed in its honour (see https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=1043)
However, it was only yesterday that I discovered how mossy looking it can be in the early spring when I tried to clean moss away from the young dark leaves of a plant I was harvesting for a salad ;)




Vert de Montmagny Ameliore

A French Dandelion cultivar, early and productive with very long leaves!