The Fascinating History of Dandelions

Dandelions are way more interesting than you think. Trust us and click play. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:41Josh Clark?

  Unless you like to puff the little seeds off of dandelion heads, you probably don't think very highly of dandelions. They're weeds, after all. But what is a weed other than an unloved plant? You know, you might have a different opinion of these teeth of the lion after hearing this episode. And come to think of it, I feel like we're really laying a bridge of understanding between humans and our garden pests with this playlist. So gratifying.

• 2:16Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

• 2:26Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Puffball Chuck and there's Blowball Jerry. And they like to call me Monk's Head and this is Stuff You Should Know.

• 2:38Josh Clark?

  Did you get those references?

• 2:40Speaker 03

  Uh, sure.

• 2:43Josh Clark?

  Okay, well, we should probably explain them to everybody else because they probably think it's an in-joke, but it's not at all. Number one, because we're about to share it with you. Number two, it's not really a joke. And number three, those are alternate names for dandelions.

• 2:58Speaker 03

  That's right. And we're going to be exalting the dandelion, probably say a lot of times how great we think it is.

• 3:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah, sorry if you hate dandelions.

• 3:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, how it's unfairly maligned. And we want to thank Sarah Andrews from Idaho because Sarah is a listener who sent this in.

• 3:17Josh Clark?

  Nice. Very nice. Thanks a lot, Sarah. Every time I hear Idaho, I'm reminded of that silly T-shirt that said Idaho, Utah.

• 3:27Josh Clark?

  Do you remember that one?

• 3:29Speaker 03

  I never saw that one.

• 3:30Josh Clark?

  What was that one? There was a company called like Dangerous T-shirts or something like that. And they had like, man, they were killing it with the crazy T-shirts for a while in like the early 2000s.

• 3:41Speaker 03

  Was that like, instead of saying Coke, it would say, you know, poke?

• 3:45Josh Clark?

  Or cocaine?

• 3:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, that kind of thing?

• 3:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, kind of. Sometimes more original than that, but yeah. They were coveted for a little bit among people who liked Incubus and stuff like that.

• 4:00Speaker 03

  I couldn't name an Incubus song, so that's not me.

• 4:03Josh Clark?

  Okay, so let's get back to dandelions. I don't know how we ever get off track. It's kind of strange, but it happens from time to time and it just happened Chuck. So let's stop it from happening right now.

• 4:15Speaker 03

  Right, because dandelions, as you will see, have had a long, rich history that we're going to talk about in depth as a medicinal plant, as an edible plant, as a wonderful pollinator, and it was recast as a villain, as a weed to get rid of. But you need only look at the history of the dandelion, the fact that it was brought to North America by colonists to kind of underscore the fact that we wanted the dandelion here.

• 4:47Josh Clark?

  Right, and it's important to say that they brought it here on purpose. I saw somebody point out like this, it wasn't, it didn't hitch a ride. It was like purposefully brought here and the idea that dandelions suck is a really recent development. Especially compared to how long people valued and prized dandelions. I just find that fascinating.

• 5:10Speaker 03

  For sure. This thing is about 30 million years old, native in sort of Atlantic Europe, all the way to Siberia. And in the northern hemisphere, you're going to know a dandelion because between March and October, you're going to see these beautiful yellow flowers. You'll see some, what's called a rosette, which are these very short, level ground stems that grow in a circular pattern. And then these little slender green hollow stalks, you know, two to 20 inches. But usually, at least around here, the dandelions are, I don't know, like eight inches.

• 5:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that seems about right. That's my experience as well.

• 5:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:52Josh Clark?

  So one of the other really impressive things about the dandelion is if you look really closely at the flower, each individual petal has a little, what becomes the part of the puffball when the flower seeds. It already is attached and that thing is called a pappus. And at the bottom of the pappus is the seed and the pappus itself is like this, like parachute essentially, that keeps the seed aloft. And research into, I saw papay, but I like pappuses as the plural.

• 6:29Speaker 03

  Oh, I love Pappy.

• 6:30Josh Clark?

  So it's found that they're actually phenomenal at keeping the seeds aloft. Like they create a kind of vortex that until it was seen when they started testing Pappy, was thought to be impossible.

• 6:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, and that vortex not only makes it, you know, travel up and out and away in such a way that if it was shaped any differently, it wouldn't do that. But if that little thing lands on water, that same vortex is going to form a little air bubble around it and protect it.

• 7:02Josh Clark?

  Yeah, one of my prized possessions is this dandelion puffball encased in resin. And it's like the real deal. And I've never understood how it worked, but it turns out that if you actually take a dandelion puffball and actually not just put water in it, but submerge it in water, the puffball does not, it doesn't collapse. Isn't that nuts?

• 7:24Speaker 03

  It's amazing.

• 7:25Josh Clark?

  I think so, too. So that's just one of the many amazing things we're going to reveal today on Stuff You Should Know.

• 7:34Speaker 03

  Did I wander into the wrong show?

• 7:37Josh Clark?

  Well, we should tell everybody it's 10 a.m. and we usually record at 1:00. So I'm a much different person at 10 a.m.

• 7:44Speaker 03

  You're a news anchor, apparently.

• 7:47Speaker 03

  So I mentioned yellow, they're not always yellow. They can be orange, they can be white, they can be kind of purply peach. They open in the morning and close in the evening, which has given them the name the shepherd's clock. And they do that to preserve pollen and keep that pollen safe for the next day, which also makes it, and this is one of my favorite words, a photo nasty.

• 8:11Josh Clark?

  Oh, that's a great word.

• 8:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, plants open and close with the setting and rising of the sun. It's called photo nasty.

• 8:20Josh Clark?

  I saw like a time lapse. I actually, it wasn't a video, it was just a series of photos of the dandelion flower opening and closing over the course of the day. I found, I ran across a word from researching this that I'd never heard before that I absolutely love. Dandelions, like you said, are edible. They're used in cooking, they're culinary plant, which makes them a pot herb. One word, a pot herb. Isn't that awesome? What a great homey little, like I just imagine, you know, hobbits using that word.

• 8:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, hobbits and my wife.

• 8:54Josh Clark?

  Oh, does she call it pot herbs? You've heard that before?

• 8:57Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah. She's, I mean, I told her we were talking about dandelions today and she was just like, "Oh, are you gonna talk about this, this, this, this, this, this?"

• 9:04Josh Clark?

  Right. She's like, "Oh, the famous pot herb?"

• 9:07Speaker 03

  Uh, it's also another kind of clock. You know, I already mentioned the shepherd's clock because the opening and closing at, at the sunrise and sunset. But, um, those little seed heads, they're called dandelion clocks. And that is from the old, uh, you know, you make a wish when you blow, uh, the dandelion and you scatter those seeds. It's sort of a long, rich childhood tradition. Um, but apparently the number of puffs it takes to empty that thing is what time it is. So it can, I haven't tested this out. I don't know if this is rock solid science, but that's a sort of a thing.

• 9:39Josh Clark?

  Hmm. That's pretty neat.

• 9:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:42Josh Clark?

  Um, and one other thing about those, um, pappas's and the seeds that are attached to them. There's a longstanding, um, I guess, kind of urban legend, or maybe rural legend, um, that they can travel up to a hundred kilometers, 62 miles. And that does not seem to be the case, even though you'll see that stat absolutely everywhere, including some legitimate places. But, um, Kyle, uh, helped us with this, our British buddy. Um, and he found that a 2003 study, which is the most recent you can find on this, is that, um, just one in 7,000 pappas's travels more than one kilometer. So just leave a hundred kilometers out of the whole equation.

• 10:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. And Kyle told us that because he's from England, but, uh, for our North American listeners, we're talking 320 something feet, if it's a hundred kilometers, and about three and a half feet, uh, for a meter.

• 10:39Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And apparently 99 and a half percent of all pappas's land just within 30 feet of the parent plant, which is also 10 meters. Um, so yes, if you ever hear that a pappus can travel a hundred kilometers, you can be like, "That's wrong. What you just said is wrong."

• 10:56Speaker 03

  I think like one did and they framed that. Maybe that's the one you have in amber.

• 11:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's like that first dollar bill you make as a business. You put it into amber.

• 11:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's also a cool adaptation where after they flower, that little hollow stalk that the flower sits upon goes limp on the ground and is just sort of hiding there away from birds and stuff. And when they ripen up, they jump back up again and they're like, here we are.

• 11:22Josh Clark?

  That's pretty cool. I think so too. Do you want to take a break and come back and talk about where they got their name?

• 11:28Speaker 03

  Let's do it.

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• 14:42Josh Clark?

  So Chuck, dandelion, I've never stopped and considered why it was called that. But it turns out that whole, that lion at the end is actually a giveaway for where the name came from. It's French for lion's tooth, dent de lion.

• 14:58Josh Clark?

  Pretty neat.

• 14:58Speaker 03

  I love that.

• 14:59Josh Clark?

  The reason they call it that is it's a reference to the deeply serrated jagged leaves. I guess somebody was like, "That looks like a lion's tooth." And they lived in France and that's where they got the name dandelion.

• 15:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it's also, if you look at the botanical name, it really gives a good indication of what it was being used for back then. The genus name is Taraxicum. And there are a couple of explanations here. I kinda like the second one. The first one is a Greek word for disorder, which is ataxia. But it's also, could have come from Arabic for bitter herb, which is taraxchagog. And then when you combine bitter herb with the species name, which is, how would you say that?

• 15:43Josh Clark?

  Afficionale? I don't know.

• 15:45Speaker 03

  Afficionale? That is a word for monastery storeroom. So a bitter herb in a monastery storeroom basically is telling you, "Hey, we use this plant in a very productive way."

• 15:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the whole disorder thing is totally insensible, if you ask me.

• 16:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, I agree.

• 16:03Josh Clark?

  So, one of the other great things, so humans use dandelions, as we'll see in a lot of different ways and have for a very long time, but our animal friends love dandelions, too. Those flowers, even though they look kinda flimsy, if you think about it, they're rich in nectar, packed with it. So bees, butterflies, basically any kind of pollinators love dandelions. Like you said, the reason the stalk falls to the ground after flowering and as the seed heads are developing, that's because birds love the little dandelion seeds. And one of the other things that's important about them, too, is they, they basically flower

• 16:46Josh Clark?

  and seed almost around, like, the whole year, depending on where you live. So, at times where there's not a lot of food sources for birds and pollinators, the dandelion's there to kinda keep them going through the, say, you know, late fall.

• 17:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. And I think it's one of the first guys to get going in the spring, too, right?

• 17:09Josh Clark?

  I believe so, yep.

• 17:11Speaker 03

  So, we're gonna get more in detail about, you know, how it's been eaten, but, um, well, actually, let's save all that. Let's just tease it then and say it has long been eaten, is now being eaten again due to the sort of foraging movement happening in the culinary world.

• 17:29Josh Clark?

  It's a great tease.

• 17:30Speaker 03

  I think that kinda kicked off in COVID, when people are like, "Well, I can't go to the store. What can I eat that's in my backyard?"

• 17:36Josh Clark?

  I'll try dandelions. I've always wondered what they taste like.

• 17:40Speaker 03

  Better.

• 17:41Josh Clark?

  So, yeah, nice. So, I think we said probably a couple of times that people have been using dandelions for all sorts of reasons, not just as pot herbs. For a long time, one of the earlier mentions we can find was in the Arabic world, a couple of physicians named Raaziz and Avicenna both wrote about some of the properties of dandelions and dandelion roots back in the 10th and 11th centuries. And most of what they were talking about was its use as a diuretic. And medicinally speaking, that's probably the most famous property that dandelions have, is they make you pee. And in fact, there's a couple of

• 18:23Josh Clark?

  names that refer to that, depending on where you are, for dandelions that refer to the fact that they make you pee, right?

• 18:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right. In France, they're called, apparently more than they're called the denteleon, they're called the pissenlit, which means, you know, pee pee in the night. And a folk name in England is pissa bed.

• 18:43Josh Clark?

  For the same reason.

• 18:45Speaker 03

  Yeah. And, you know, apparently, it's all the potassium in there that's gonna stimulate urination. And, you know, because of that, diuretics are used for a lot of things. And, you know, medicinally now and historically, if you wanna work something through your system and pee it out, dandelions is a good way to make that happen.

• 19:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And very famously, in the American Midwest, they're called pee pee weeds.

• 19:09Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 19:11Josh Clark?

  That's totally made up, I should say.

• 19:14Speaker 03

  Oh, that's not true either?

• 19:15Josh Clark?

  No, I just made it up.

• 19:17Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 19:17Josh Clark?

  I got you. I got you back for the, what was the lateral gene transfer gospel group that you got me with?

• 19:25Speaker 03

  Oh, jeez, I don't even remember now.

• 19:27Josh Clark?

  It was that.

• 19:29Speaker 03

  But I've only gotten you once. The score is Josh, 3,000, 2,1.

• 19:33Josh Clark?

  Oh, man.

• 19:34Speaker 03

  Uh, there was a 16th century book too. What was the name of that one?

• 19:38Josh Clark?

  People call it Garden of Health because the full title of it is containing the sundry, rare, and hidden virtues of all kinds of simples and plants, together with the manner of how they are used and applied in medicine for the health of man's body against diverse diseases and infirmities most common against men, gathered by the long experience and industry of William Langham, practitioner of physic. That's the actual title of that book, which is why there's like, yeah, we're just gonna call it Garden of Health.

• 20:09Speaker 03

  I mean, Garden of Health really says what that says.

• 20:11Josh Clark?

  I know. He didn't need all that extra stuff. That's like the introduction, I think. He put the introduction in the title.

• 20:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a little, did it say the end at the end?

• 20:20Josh Clark?

  Pretty much.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  Uh, this is from, like I said, the 16th century, and it talked a lot about, um, you know, all the kinds of things they thought it could help back then, toothaches, fevers, uh, depression, even baldness. Uh, but they also talked about growing it alongside other vegetables and herbs in the garden. And you dug up this kind of cool fact. Uh, it's ethylene gas that they release. So if you actually grow dandelions or have dandelions growing near fruiting plants like tomatoes, they're gonna ripen faster.

• 20:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Isn't that neat?

• 20:50Speaker 03

  Super cool.

• 20:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah, we're gonna cover a lot of actually pretty cool little, um, benefits, I guess, that they provide. But let's keep going with the, the tradition of using them medicinally, shall we?

• 21:02Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 21:04Josh Clark?

  There's a guy named John Gerard who wrote a book in the 1630s, and he's like, hey, I wanted to contribute to this too. I've found that dandelion strengthens the weak stomach, um, and which is important because actually if you use the roots of a dandelion, um, it's a, it contains a lot of inulin, which is an important prebiotic for gut health. So John Gerard wasn't just Whistling Dixie.

• 21:28Speaker 03

  No, not at all. It turns out they have more vitamin A than spinach, more vitamin C than tomatoes. They've got a ton. We already mentioned potassium, but also a lot of calcium, a lot of iron. And then a lot of words that I can barely pronounce that you found that it's packed with. Starting with flavonoids, that's the only one I had heard of.

• 21:50Josh Clark?

  It has triterpenes, sesquiterpenes, phenolic acid, sterols, and coumarins. And they bestow things like antibacterial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective, and anti-tumor properties. And you dug up a lot of ways that they actually help health, right?

• 22:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I mean, we can talk all day about like the ways that people thought it would help you back in the, you know, 16th century. But people might poo poo something like that. But there have been modern studies. I'll just give you a few examples. There was a study from 2015 in Canada that reported that dandelion extract can block ultraviolet UVB radiation.

• 22:30Josh Clark?

  That's crazy.

• 22:31Speaker 03

  When applied to the skin, it can also irritate the skin. So don't necessarily just like take dandelions and like start rubbing them all over yourself at the pool. There was a 2016 review of studies from a university in Denmark that suggests that dandelion extracts actually stimulates pancreatic cells to produce insulin. So it could potentially help control blood sugar.

• 22:53Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 22:55Speaker 03

  And what about, there was one on the liver too, right?

• 22:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I said it was hepatoprotective, which means it helps the liver. And actually, it goes in and like just kicks butt in your liver. It slows the progression of fibrosis, which is scarring of the liver. And the extract actually inactivates the cells that cause fibrosis in the liver. And essentially, your liver, as everybody knows, it can regenerate itself. Once the dandelion extract has gone in and stopped the fibrosis, the liver can heal. So it's incredibly helpful with protecting the liver from damage. I mean, that's nuts. It's almost like it was designed to do that for the liver. It's that effective.

• 23:37Speaker 03

  I do want to mention the cancer one because Emily had a very funny, very Emily line. There was a 2020, I mean, why would I do that lately? 2020 12, I did that.

• 23:48Josh Clark?

  You do that a lot, yeah.

• 23:50Speaker 03

  What is happening?

• 23:51Josh Clark?

  I don't know.

• 23:52Speaker 03

  Uh, it's a, uh, study from the University of Windsor in Canada about dandelion root extract, uh, can induce, um, uh, apoptosis, which is cell death in pancreatic and prostate cancer.

• 24:04Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:04Speaker 03

  And test tube, uh, and their cells in the test tubes, uh, potentially preventing their spread. So this is something Emily knew and this morning she was like, yeah, it, it's so like, um, modern American at the very least to take something that could actually help fight cancer and spray chemicals on it to kill it.

• 24:23Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 24:24Speaker 03

  That cause cancer.

• 24:24Josh Clark?

  Right. Yeah.

• 24:25Speaker 03

  And she stormed out of the room.

• 24:26Josh Clark?

  Sometimes we have to learn the hard way, but it is, it is reassuring that things seem to be coming full circle. You know what I mean?

• 24:33Speaker 03

  Yeah. I feel like people are getting a little more eyes open to stuff like that.

• 24:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah. They're getting on board the dandelion train. So one thing about those studies that you, you said, like they're, they're, they're essentially confirming to, um, our modern tastes, what the Chinese knew all the way back in 659 CE, um, people like Nicholas Culpepper knew in the 18th century, all these people wrote about this stuff and just how effective it was. And then now science is going in and saying, these people were right and here's how it is effective. Uh, I, I think that's pretty cool. And in part because of that, the dandelion is being rehabilitated. But, um, first I think we need to mention, you said that, uh, it came by North America. I piped up on purpose. I think more than

• 25:21Josh Clark?

  once even, I was so excited about that. And it's possible it was actually on the Mayflower. It arrived that early. And they think that because of plant migration, as we talked about before, the dandelion may have spread ahead of Europeans as they entered.

• 25:36Speaker 03

  Right.

• 25:37Josh Clark?

  Further and further into, uh, the North American continent. And so Native Americans that they encountered, um, may have already been using dandelions in some of their medicines.

• 25:47Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, absolutely. They were drinking it in tonics. Uh, they were boiling it with, uh, fatty meats, which is, sounds disgusting.

• 25:55Josh Clark?

  It does.

• 25:56Speaker 03

  It really does.

• 25:58Josh Clark?

  Unless you're talking about something like collards with like ham hocks or something. That, that sounds okay, but I, in this case, I, I imagine a, a pot of boiling water with a, a skin of fat just bubbling at the top and some dandelion leaves floating around in it.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  And we'll talk about more ways you can eat it, but it's long been used in like cordials and beers like the dandelion root. You can grind it up and use it as like a coffee substitute, kind of like chicory. So, you know, people were using it for medicine. They were using it for old kinds of folk remedies and foods and things, largely because, again, it was everywhere. It grows in not very good soil. They can, it's considered a perennial because they can live well, because like you said, they're kind of growing year round, but they can live for more than 10 years if you don't mess with them and kill them. Yeah.

• 26:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think that's pretty cool, too. One of the other things I saw, there's a book called The Economical Housewife from the 1850s, that it might be the first recipe for dandelion wine. And people still make that today, and it's actually super easy. You just take some dandelion flowers, some water. Eventually, you add some sugar and some lemon, let it sit for a couple of weeks, strain it out, and then let it sit for another week and age, and you've got yourself some dandelion wine. And it sounds deliciously easy, or maybe easily delicious, one of the two. But I'd love to try it. Have you ever had dandelion wine or dandelion beer or anything like that?

• 27:25Speaker 03

  No, not at all. I mean, it's definitely a thing. Ray Bradbury had a novel called Dandelion Wine from 1957, so it's something that's been enjoyed all over the world. In France, they use it sometimes. They'll take the leaves and blanch them and spread them with bread and butter. Like, it sounds like if there's not a Brooklyn restaurant serving dandelion toast at this point, then what is happening in our world?

• 27:52Josh Clark?

  I don't know. It sounds like fairy toast, like the Australians love, but with dandelion leaves instead.

• 27:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's also, you know, just a salad, a salad green component. And like we said, it is very bitter, but it's using all kinds of salad. Sometimes it's the only kind of leaf used in a salad. Sometimes it can be mixed in with other things. But in France, they have one called the salad de pissenlits, from that original name, that's got bacon in it and dandelion leaves. It just, you know, sounds pretty good to me.

• 28:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, apparently that was a common dish during the Depression in America, too, because it was just cheap, you know?

• 28:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:32Josh Clark?

  And it sounds delicious, too. I say we take a break and we come back and talk about another surprising use of dandelion that I hadn't heard of until this, but you probably did because of Emily.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  No, I delighted her with that fact as well. So we'll be right back.

• 29:04Josh Clark?

  Everyone has a story to tell. What's yours? The moment you met your partner, landed that promotion? For people living with a rare disease, life can feel divided into before the diagnosis and all the after moments that follow. On Voices of VivGart, VivGart is also known as its generic name, Fgartigimod Alpha F-Cab, you'll hear powerful stories from people facing challenges and embracing a life with a rare disease.

• 29:27Speaker 03

  Join host Andra Stratten as she guides listeners through honest conversations about life after diagnosis. You'll hear how each guest worked with her care team on their treatment plan, as well as their personal challenges, setbacks, progress, and moments of connection.

• 29:40Josh Clark?

  These stories reveal that life is bigger than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Listen to Voices of VivGart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 29:56Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it all starts with a great deal on a truck from your local Toyota dealer.

• 30:06Speaker 03

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• 30:19Josh Clark?

  Or discover Toyota's off-road lineup, including the iconic 4Runner and Land Cruiser, designed to go beyond the everyday. And with Toyota's proven reputation for quality and reliability, plus hybrid power on many models, you can get more for every mile and drive for less along the way.

• 30:35Speaker 03

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• 30:57Speaker 02

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• 31:38Speaker 03

  All right, so Josh said that he hadn't heard of this. Cool fact. I hadn't heard of it. Emily hadn't heard of it. And I think it may be the fact of the podcast. But dandelions are a source of natural rubber.

• 31:54Josh Clark?

  Pretty cool.

• 31:55Speaker 03

  Full stop.

• 31:55Josh Clark?

  I would take issue with that. I think it has to do with the vortices over the pappy or the fact that they're pot herbs. All right. This one's good. It's up there. Maybe they're all tied for first. I don't know, but...

• 32:09Speaker 03

  Hey, that means we got a good topic if there are several competitors.

• 32:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And so not just any dandelion produces rubber or latex that can be turned into rubber. A specific type of dandelion, they figured out the Kazakh dandelion, which is native to the Eurasian steppes. How'd you like that? It's also called the Russian dandelion here in the United States. That specific one puts out enough latex that it gave rubber trees a run for their money during World War II, which we've talked about many times. America and Britain were like, "We need more rubber for the war effort." And the Japanese control essentially all of the rubber supply. We're at war with the Japanese, so we better come up with something else quick.

• 32:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, so they literally started screening like thousands and thousands of plants. And I guess they were like, hey, if the, if the rubber tree can grow rubber, there's got to be something else out there.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  The Soviets are the ones who said, try this Kazakh dandelion.

• 33:15Josh Clark?

  It's premium.

• 33:15Speaker 03

  And because of shortages during the wars, they said, here, here's a bunch of seeds. And they sent a bunch of those Kazakh seeds, the Soviet Allies at the time in the 1940s. And ultimately, we used some of it. Russians, Americans, and Germans did produce rubber from dandelions. It's very hardy.

• 33:36Speaker 03

  It can be susceptible to disease, though, depending what kind of disease. But also grows everywhere and serves as a pollinator and it doesn't deforest things. So the big problem, though, and I know everyone's like, oh, my God, is this the miracle we've all been hoping for with rubber? It just doesn't yield as much as the Russians said it did. And so it's not economically viable as long as the real rubber tree is around.

• 34:01Josh Clark?

  They released some paper that overstated how much rubber can be gotten from the dandelion because they wanted to sound like big shots.

• 34:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:09Josh Clark?

  So the reason why we didn't just keep going with dandelion rubber research in trying to figure out how to increase yields is because in the meantime, people figured out we could make synthetic rubber from petroleum. It was almost as good as natural rubber and certainly was a good enough substitute. And we could just make batch after batch after batch rather than have to try to yield it from dandelions. So that fell to the wayside. And then by the time the World War II ended, we had access to natural rubber supplies from the, from the Southeast, Southeast Asia, I should say.

• 34:46Josh Clark?

  And so all that kind of put dandelion rubber on the back shelf. But in the, what?

• 34:52Josh Clark?

  Eighty, almost a hundred years, geez, since World War II. I remember when that was like, just like, that was firmly like forty to fifty years in the past. And it just keeps getting further and further away. It's really awful. But we, we've kind of figured out in the interim that synthetic rubber, it's useful, but there's nothing that can match natural rubber for like grip, heat dissipation, all sorts of other properties. So we're starting to go back to look at sources for natural rubber, including ones that are more sustainable than the rubber trees, which require you basically deforest and then plant the rubber trees to create a plantation. With dandelions, you don't have to do that stuff.

• 35:35Speaker 03

  No. You got a big field, you can have dandelions. And like I said, it grows in, it doesn't have to be great soil. You can grow it hydroponically without soil at all. You can grow it in the air, which is aeroponically. It's, it's pretty amazing. And I think it's one of those things where like, anytime you have a monoculture plant like that, like the rubber tree, it makes people a little bit nervous besides the deforestation. Like if anything ever happened, like some kind of weird blight and the rubber trees were just, you know, not a candidate anymore, you got dandelions kind of waiting on deck with their bat.

• 36:08Josh Clark?

  Right. So it's kind of surprising that it went from this really prized plant in so many ways to a hated weed, especially in Europe and the United States. And you hit upon why it became a hated weed. You use the word monoculture. And the largest monoculture here in the United States are people's lawns. And for part of the aesthetic of the lawn, you cannot have dandelions breaking up that perfect, unbroken sea of green grass. You got a dandelion popping up, the whole thing's ruined, basically. That's the way people think of dandelions and lawns these days, or have since about the 50s, essentially.

• 36:50Speaker 03

  That beautiful yellow flower, stomp it.

• 36:53Josh Clark?

  Right. Dig it up.

• 36:55Speaker 03

  But yeah, that's what happened. And we've gone over this before, but just sort of as a quick overview. This is the kind of thing that came over from England, starting in the 17th century is when British aristocracy really started to get into these perfect sort of croquet, croquet playing lawns, I guess is what you would call them. And then in America, it was post-World War II when suburbanization really took hold. Lawn mowers really came into their own. Everyone was like, hey, we've got these great new chemicals that'll kill everything, except and make the grass grow really, really well. And it's, it's just

• 37:37Speaker 03

  modern and tidy and good looking. And that really kind of transformed the United States. You know, like, keep up that lawn, make a perfect green lawn if you want to keep your property value up, everybody.

• 37:47Josh Clark?

  Right, that's a big one. And Kyle also dug up another reason, too, that once the Cold War rolled around, conformity was equated with safety. So if you weren't keeping your lawn trimmed like everybody else, what's going on with you? You're making me feel a little bit nervous because you're not conforming. You must be a red spy hiding out in suburbia, basically, right? And I think that's a really important kind of overlooked driver for things like perfectly manicured lawns and everybody having the same kind of thing.

• 38:18Speaker 03

  Yeah. And speaking of driver, the other, I don't think we've ever mentioned contributor to this.

• 38:24Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 38:24Speaker 03

  Was in the 1950s, golf started being televised. In 1957, you got golf on television for the first time. And people look at Augusta National and these golf courses that were beautifully manicured, and aesthetically pleasing to the eye. And they're like, hey, I need to get some of that in my front yard. Maybe I can practice chipping some balls around in my front yard.

• 38:48Josh Clark?

  Also, if you're sitting there thinking like, wow, I really love hearing these guys talk about grass, but I'd love to hear them have a dispute over it, you should go listen to how our grass works episode. It's actually a pretty good one. It's a classic stuff you should know episode.

• 39:02Speaker 03

  It totally is. But anyway, all that preamble about, you know, us pooping lawns and why America did that, brought us to this, which is weeds became enemy number one and dandelions were maybe even near the top of that list.

• 39:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there's a lot of reasons why. For all the reasons that they're valuable, the pollinators and other kinds of plants, and that they can grow in marginal lands and basically everywhere, is it makes them an enemy as a weed if you're trying to create a monoculture lawn, right? So they can regenerate from like a one inch section of root, which means that if you cut a dandelion off at the, even below ground level, it's like, good, you know, good try, pal. But it just sprouts right back up. You have to dig them up. And even after you dig them up, you might not get them. Because one of the things that I didn't know about dandelions is I knew they grew from a taproot. You have to get that taproot up or else it's just futile.

• 40:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:02Josh Clark?

  But that taproot can grow, depending on the age of the dandelion, over a dozen feet, meters, four meters into the ground.

• 40:11Speaker 03

  Meters.

• 40:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And that makes it really hard to get rid of. And so if you're like a groundskeeper for a golf course or something like that, you have to really keep up with the dandelions because they'll spread really fast and they're really hard to get rid of once you do start trying to get rid of them.

• 40:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. And I gotta say this last fact from Kyle, because it goes back to the lawns, but this really kind of drives at home about how not great a perfect green lawn is for our society. There was a study in 2005, residential lawns in the United States make up 2% of the land, but require more irrigation than any domestic agricultural crop.

• 40:52Josh Clark?

  I've got, I've got one to piggyback on that.

• 40:55Speaker 03

  Let's hear it.

• 40:55Josh Clark?

  The US Fish and Wildlife Service says that homeowners use up to 10 times more pesticides per acre than farmers use on their crops. So we're using this stuff, overusing it, and we're using it on stuff that's not productive land just to keep up with the Joneses so they don't think we're communist spies.

• 41:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, I walk Gibson in the mornings and there are the only lawns that he ever like rubs his face in are the the most perfect green ones and I know that it's because they have recently been sprayed. And he smells it and is trying to rub all in that stuff and it drives me bonkers.

• 41:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's it's a like, I would love to just let my lawn and you me too. Just go to like wildflowers, go to weeds, you know, just mow it, you keep it mowed, but at a higher height. But yeah, you just let this stuff grow and we would be completely. We would stick out like a sore thumb from the rest of the neighborhood so much that our neighbors would be mad at us. That's how that's how entrenched the idea of having a perfect lawn is still in the United States, depending on where you live.

• 42:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. And like no one around there even does like permaculture and you know, other other options besides just letting it grow wild and crazy.

• 42:15Josh Clark?

  No, it's it's nuts. So we definitely draw a line. So we're like, okay, we'll keep up with the lawn, but don't touch the. You know, the shrubbery, the perennials, the garden essentially, right? But people will hire the same company to like treat their lawn with chemicals to spray their bushes and spray their gardens with chemicals to kill off the bugs. And then they have to go in and try to recreate this stuff that the bugs are doing for free, the services they're providing. Because you've killed off the bugs. It's it's insane to me. So we definitely don't don't, we don't cotton to that.

• 42:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, there was, speaking of bugs, there was a scientific, a scientific review in 2019 that found that the global mass of insects is falling at a rate of about two and a half percent per year. And dandelions is a.

• 43:06Speaker 03

  High, high on the list of pollinators.

• 43:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 43:09Speaker 03

  Caterpillars love munching on them. Moths love munching on them. And all those bees and butterflies love doing their thing on them. Uh, so even, you know, I'm not trying to, to shame people, but let's say you do like your lawn and everything. Even waiting in the spring, like longer to cut it, even cutting it higher. Letting the dandelions grow up a little bit before you start whacking them down. Even that minimal amount will help out a little bit.

• 43:34Josh Clark?

  What's interesting is a non-chemical way I saw to treat your turf grass for dandelions is to let your grass grow longer. Than you have been, like cutting it at a, a higher mower height.

• 43:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:46Josh Clark?

  Because as we talked about, dandelion leaves are so low growing. That the grass will shade out and out compete the dandelions. So. If you really do want to get rid of dandelions, but you don't want to use chemicals, there's, that's a pretty good way to do it from what I've seen.

• 44:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally. Uh, some states have actual programs. There's one in Minnesota. Uh, called lawns to legumes, which is a great title. Uh, they launched that in 2019 where they just basically incentivize people. To say, get rid of that lawn, put in flowering plants, put in beds. Uh, you can have a rebate if you have a, a pollinator friendly native. Wildflower scene, uh, at your house.

• 44:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I didn't look up the amount, but, um, I would guess at, at a minimum, the rebate is worth a million dollars.

• 44:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 44:34Josh Clark?

  That'd be my, my guess. You think so? There's a couple of other things that I found that, um, dandelions, uh, I don't know if you looked at it or not. That they, they kind of provide services to the, the plants growing around them, including grass.

• 44:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:50Josh Clark?

  Because as we mentioned, those taproots, they grow really deep. And as they're growing deep, they're actually accessing nutrients that other plants around them, again, including grass. The roots of those plants can't reach because it's too deep. And it brings those nutrients up toward the surface. And as the dandelion dies off, the other plants get to, um, get to eat those nutrients. That they otherwise wouldn't have had access to. And those same roots also aerate in loose and compacted dirt too. Which makes it easier for the plants around the dandelions to grow.

• 45:25Speaker 03

  Amazing.

• 45:25Josh Clark?

  Is there anything dandelions can't do?

• 45:30Speaker 03

  I don't know. I mean, they're not super fragrant.

• 45:35Josh Clark?

  No, that's true. They're pretty much useless in that sense.

• 45:38Speaker 03

  But they can grant a child a wish.

• 45:40Josh Clark?

  They sure can, man. They sure can. I remember doing that so many times. I keep trying to do that with my dandelion puff head in resin and it's not working.

• 45:50Speaker 03

  I don't have anything else, though. I'm kind of looking over the list here. I know we were kind of all over the place, but it's just sort of one of those episodes where it's like, well, here's a list of a hundred amazing things. And so sometimes those are a little tougher to organize.

• 46:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but they can be pretty fun, too. I had fun at least. How about you?

• 46:06Speaker 03

  I did, too. And that rubber thing? Are you kidding me?

• 46:09Josh Clark?

  Uh, since neither one of us has anything else about dandelions, then we're gonna call it quits on this episode, which means we've just activated listener mail.

• 46:20Speaker 03

  You know, no listener mail today, because what we're gonna do is something we haven't done in a while, is help support and bring some attention to a great cause, our friends from the Cooperative for Education, aka CoEd, whose mission it is to break the cycle of poverty in Guatemala through education. And we've been working with them for 15 years, and we got a new thing coming up with them, right?

• 46:41Josh Clark?

  Yes, we do. So first, let me just explain, over $1.3 million in contributions have been made to CoEd, thanks to our partnership with them at Stuff You Should Know for 15 years. That's, that's really good, if you ask me.

• 46:55Speaker 03

  That's incredible.

• 46:56Josh Clark?

  Which means that 160 kids have been given like a huge leg up to escape poverty and create like, break intergenerational poverty and create literally like a new life for their entire family from that point on.

• 47:10Speaker 03

  That's right. You know, we went down there, I guess 15 years ago, when they invited us very early on in Stuff You Should Know's canon?

• 47:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 47:20Speaker 03

  In our history, and we went down to Guatemala and those shows, we did some shows on that, that trip and that visit, where we get to actually hear Jerry speak, which is pretty exciting.

• 47:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 47:29Speaker 03

  And they're just great. We've been working with them ever since. And the fact that the Stuff You Should Know Army has raised 1.3 million bucks for them over the past 15 years is going to be a real proud part of our legacy. But we have a call to action, right?

• 47:41Josh Clark?

  Yes. So you can join, we're starting a drive essentially right now.

• 47:46Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 47:46Josh Clark?

  You can join the cooperative, which is a program of theirs for $20 a month, and you'll collectively sponsor a bunch of students in the Rise Youth Development Program, right?

• 47:57Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 47:57Josh Clark?

  And so it's going to get spread out. You're going to be helping a bunch of kids at once. So you can feel good like five times over with each monthly donation. And then in 2025, more than 1,100 students will be able to start school in rural Guatemala, which will be their biggest class ever. They need help to make that happen, which is why we're saying, join the cooperative.

• 48:19Speaker 03

  That's right. And as an incentive, if this is for you, if you set up your gift by Tuesday, December 3rd, then you are signed up for a chance to do a virtual hangout with Josh and I. We do this every year around the same time. It's always a lot of fun. We hang out with, I don't know, six or eight people all over the country. And they get to just, you know, ask us questions and tell us that we're cool or dumb or whatever. It's your chance to really hand it to us if that's what you're after.

• 48:45Josh Clark?

  Right. Yeah. Hopefully, don't do that. But sure, I mean, I guess if you've given to co-ed and you deserve to do whatever you want to.

• 48:52Speaker 03

  That's right. So just go to cooperativeforeducation.org. That's the word cooperative, F-O-R, education.org/sysk. And start giving now. A little bit goes a long way down there.

• 49:07Josh Clark?

  Yes. And in the meantime, while you're looking up cooperativeforeducation.org/sysk, you can also send us an email. Send it off to [email protected].

• 49:22Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 49:38Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places. Introducing Voices of Vivgard. Vivgard is also known as its generic name, Efgart Tigamod Alpha F-Cab. And this new show features firsthand stories from people living with a rare disease.

• 50:20Josh Clark?

  Hosted by Andrew Stratton, these perspectives highlight that life is more than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Living with a rare disease can be challenging, but it does not define the Voices of Vivgard. In these episodes, they share their stories, from diagnosis to working with their care team on their treatment plan. Listen to Voices of Vivgard on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. I am here to talk to you about Dude Wipes, who offer fragrance-free wipes that are made with 99% water and plant-based ingredients. So they're gentle enough for sensitive skin, but they're tough enough for even the worst messes. Water cleans better, and Dude Wipes flushable wipes deliver textbook freshness and ultimate clean. And just like human body molecules, Dude Wipes are made with 99% water, plus they're

• 51:05Josh Clark?

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