September became May at a parting of the hedge, a whole vista of brilliant yellow rosettes shouting out spring from the meadow beyond. The self-deception lasted just as long as it took me to say “dande-? No.”
Though the Taraxacum officinale produces its big bloom in April and May, its relatives can still half fool me into turning back the clock. Its myriad cousins in the daisy family are, at first glance, dandelion lookalikes. The great botanist Richard Fitter (1913-2005) attributed part of the difficulty in trying to separate them out into the various hawksbeards, hawkbits, hawkweeds, sowthistles and catsears to “the confusing similarity of their seemingly irrelevant English names”.
The not-quite-a-dandelion appearance usually asserts itself – the flower head is too sparse, too flat-topped, the petal tips too far apart, the stem as thin as cotton thread instead of straw-thick.
The rosettes of this flower were more dandelion than a dandelion. However, there was no mistaking the leaves, which could identify these plants with certainty in an instant. Thick, fleshy and wax-coated, they were specked with raised white pimples that extruded tiny thorns, reminding me of my son’s malevolent cactus.
An ancient introduction, thriving in any rough grassland, the bristly oxtongue has a name that seems to resonate with old country lore, though I’m puzzled by the second part of that title. Does it have a link with the texture of a cow’s tongue? I have waggled my fingers in greeting through many a farm gate, but cows seem to know that it is rude to stick out your tongue and only ever proffer a cold-nosed sniff and snort.
The bristly element is, however, undeniably true. I tested the overall spikiness by frisking a specimen of Helminthotheca echioides from bottom to top. A cursory swipe of the leaves (certainly sharp) was followed by a finger-and-thumb slide up spiny stems and a full-fingered cupping of bracts that fairly bristled with prickly resistance.
And then I raised my hand and dabbed at the petals. They were so fine as to be insubstantial and were depressed by my touch. After the rough harshness of the plant, I could feel nothing of the delicacy in this flower’s crowning glory.
