"When lo! he starts with glad surprise, Home thoughts come rushing o'er him, For, modest, wee, and crimson-tipped A flower he sees before him. With eager haste he stoops him down, His eyes with moisture hazy; And as he plucks the simple bloom He murmurs, 'Lawk, a Daisy'"! DANDELION. Owing to long years of particular evolutionary sagacity in developing winged seeds to be wafted from the silky pappus of its ripe flowerheads over wide areas of land, [148] the Dandelion exhibits its handsome golden flowers in every field and on every ground plot throughout the whole of our country. They are to be distinguished from the numerous hawkweeds, by having the outermost leaves of their exterior cup bent downwards whilst the stalk is coloured and shining. The plant-leaves have jagged edges which resemble the angular jaw of a lion fully supplied with teeth; or, some writers say, the herb has been named from the heraldic lion which is vividly yellow, with teeth of gold-in fact, a dandy lion! Again, the flower closely resembles the sun, which a lion represents. It is called by some Blowball, Time Table, and Milk "Gowan" (or golden). "How like a prodigal does Nature seem, When thou with all thy gold so common art." In some of our provinces the herb is known as Wiggers, and Swinesnout; whilst again in Devon and Cornwall it is called the Dashelflower. Botanically it belongs to the composite order, and is named _Taraxacum Leontodon_, or eatable, and lion-toothed. This latter when Latinised is _dens leonis_, and in French _dent de lion_. The title Taraxacum is an Arabian corruption of the Greek _trogimon_, "edible"; or it may have been derived from the Greek _taraxos_, "disorder," and _akos_, "remedy." It once happened that a plague of insects destroyed the harvest in the island of Minorca, so that the inhabitants had to eat the wild produce of the country; and many of them then subsisted for some while entirely on this plant. The Dandelion, which is a wild sort of Succory, was known to Arabian physicians, since Avicenna of the eleventh century mentions it as _taraxacon_. It is found throughout Europe, Asia, and North America; possessing a root which abounds with milky juice, and [149] this varying in character according to the time of year in which the plant is gathered.