Dandelion- Botanical: Taraxacum officinale

[Guest guest]

Dandelion- Botanical: Taraxacum officinale

(WEBER)-Medicinal Action and Uses

Preparations and Dosages

---Synonyms---Priest's Crown. Swine's Snout.

---Parts Used---Root, leaves.

---

-----------

The Dandelion-

Taraxacum officinale,

 

The young leaves of the Dandelion make an agreeable and wholesome

addition to spring salads and are often eaten on the Continent,

especially in France. The full-grown leaves should not be taken,

being too bitter, but the young leaves, especially if blanched, make

an excellent salad, either alone or in combination with other

plants, lettuce, shallot tops or chives.

 

Young Dandelion leaves make delicious sandwiches, the tender leaves

being laid between slices of bread and butter and sprinkled with

salt. The addition of a little lemon-juice and pepper varies the

flavour. The leaves should always be torn to pieces, rather than

cut, in order to keep the flavour.

 

John Evelyn, in his Acetana, says: 'With thie homely salley, Hecate

entertained Theseus.'

 

In Wales, they grate or chop up Dandelion roots, two years old, and

mix them with the leaves in salad. The

seed of a special broad-leaved variety of Dandelion is sold by

seedsmen for cultivation for salad purposes.

 

Dandelion can be blanched in the same way as endive, and is then

very delicate in

flavour. If covered with an ordinary flower-pot during the winter,

the pot being further buried under some rough stable litter, the

young leaves sprout when there is a dearth of saladings and prove a

welcome change in early spring. Cultivated thus, Dandelion is only

pleasantly bitter, and if eaten while the leaves are quite young,

the centre rib of the leaf is not at all unpleasant to the taste.

When older the rib is tough and not nice to eat. If the flower-buds

of plants reserved in a corner of the garden for salad purposes are

removed at once and the leaves carefully cut, the plants will last

through the whole winter.

 

The young leaves may also be boiled as a vegetable, spinach fashion,

thoroughly drained, sprinkled with pepper and salt, moistened with

soup or butter and served very hot. If considered a little too

bitter, use half spinach, but the Dandelion must be partly cooked

first in this case, as it takes longer than spinach. As a variation,

some grated nutmeg or garlic, a teaspoonful of chopped onion or

grated lemon peel can be added to the greens when they are cooked. A

simple vegetable soup may also be made with Dandelions.

 

The dried Dandelion leaves are also employed as an ingredient in

many digestive or diet drinks and herb beers.

 

Dandelion Beer is a rustic fermented drink common in many parts of

the country and made

also in Canada. Workmen in the furnaces and potteries of the

industrial towns of the Midlands have frequent resource to many of

the tonic Herb Beers, finding them cheaper and less intoxicating

than ordinary beer, and Dandelion stout ranks as a favourite. An

agreeable and wholesome fermented drink is made from Dandelions,

Nettles and Yellow Dock.

 

In Berkshire and Worcestershire, the flowers are used in the

preparation of a beverage known as Dandelion Wine. This is made by

pouring a gallon of boiling water over a gallon of the flowers.

 

After being well stirred, it is covered with a blanket and allowed

to stand for three days, being stirred again at intervals, after

which it is strained and the liquor boiled for 30 minutes, with the

addition of 3 1/2 lb. of turbinado sugar, a little ginger sliced, the

rind of 1 orange and 1 lemon sliced. When cold, a little yeast is

placed in it on a piece of toast, producing fermentation. It is then

covered over and allowed to stand two days until it has

ceased 'working,' when it is placed in a cask, well bunged down for

two months before bottling. This wine is suggestive of sherry

slightly flat, and has the deserved reputation of being an excellent

tonic, extremely good for the blood.

 

The roasted roots are largely used to form Dandelion Coffee, being

first thoroughly cleaned, then dried by artificial heat, and

slightly roasted till they are the tint of coffee, when they are

ground ready for use. The roots are taken up in the autumn, being

then most fitted for this purpose. The prepared powder is said to be

almost indistinguishable from real coffee, and is claimed to be an

improvement to inferior coffee, which is often an adulterated

product. Of late years, Dandelion Coffee has come more into use in

this country, being obtainable at most vegetarian restaurants and

stores. Formerly it used occasionally to be given for medicinal

purposes, generally mixed with true coffee to give it a better

flavour.

 

Dandelion Coffee is a natural beverage without any

of the injurious effects that ordinary tea and coffee have on the

nerves and digestive organs. It exercises a stimulating influence

over the whole system, helping the liver and kidneys to do their

work and keeping the bowels in a healthy condition, so that it

offers great advantages to dyspeptics and does not cause

wakefulness.

 

[Top]

 

---Parts Used Medicinally---The root, fresh and dried, the young

tops. All parts of the plant contain a somewhat bitter, milky juice

(latex), but the juice of the root being still more powerful is the

part of the plant most used for medicinal purposes.

 

---History---The first mention of the Dandelion as a medicine is in

the works of the Arabian physicians of the tenth and eleventh

centuries, who speak of it as a sort of wild Endive, under the name

of Taraxcacon. In this country, we find allusion to it in the Welsh

medicines of the thirteenth century. Dandelion was much valued as a

medicine in the times of Gerard and Parkinson, and is still

extensively employed.

 

Dandelion roots have long been largely used on the Continent, and

the plant is cultivated largely in India as a remedy for liver

complaints.

 

The root is perennial and tapering, simple or more or less branched,

attaining in a good soil a length of a foot or more and 1/2 inch to

an inch in diameter. Old roots divide at the crown into several

heads. The root is fleshy and brittle, externally of a dark brown,

internally white and abounding in an inodorous milky juice of

bitter, but not disagreeable taste.

 

Only large, fleshy and well-formed roots should be collected, from

plants two years old, not slender, forked ones. Roots produced in

good soil are easier to dig up without breaking, and are thicker and

less forked than those growing on waste places and by the roadside.

Collectors should, therefore only dig in good, free soil, in

moisture and shade, from meadow-land. Dig up in wet weather, but not

during frost, which materially lessens the activity of the roots.

Avoid breaking the roots, using a long trowel or a fork, lifting

steadily and carefully. Shake off as much of the earth as possible

and then cleanse the roots, the easiest way being to leave them in a

basket in a running stream so that the water covers them, for about

an hour, or shake them, bunched, in a tank of clean water. Cut off

the crowns of leaves, but be careful in so doing not to leave any

scales on the top. Do not cut or slice the roots or the valuable

milky juice on which their medicinal value depends will be wasted by

bleeding.

 

[Top]

 

---Cultivation---As only large, well-formed roots are worth

collecting, some people prefer to grow Dandelions as a crop, as by

this means large roots are insured and they are more easily dug,

generally being ploughed up. About 4 lb. of seed to the acre should

be allowed, sown in drills, 1 foot apart. The crops should be kept

clean by hoeing, and all flower-heads should be picked off as soon

as they appear, as otherwise the grower's own land and that of his

neighbours will be smothered with the weed when the seeds ripen. The

yield should be 4 or 5 tons of fresh roots to the acre in the second

year. Dandelion roots shrink very much in drying, losing about 76

per cent of their weight, so that 100 parts of fresh roots yield

only about 22 parts of dry material. Under favourable conditions,

yields at the rate of 1,000 to 1,500 lb. of dry roots per acre have

been obtained from second-year plants cultivated.

 

Dandelion root can only be economically collected when a meadow in

which it is abundant is ploughed up. Under such circumstances the

roots are necessarily of different ages and sizes, the seeds sowing

themselves in successive years. The roots then collected after

washing and drying, have to be sorted into different grades. The

largest, from the size of a lead pencil upwards, are cut into

straight pieces 2 to 3 inches long, the smaller side roots being

removed, these are sold at a higher price as the finest roots. The

smaller roots fetch a less price, and the trimmings are generally

cut small, sold at a lower price and used for making Dandelion

Coffee. Every part of the root is thus used. The root before being

dried should have every trace of the leaf-bases removed as their

presence lessens the value of the root.

 

In collecting cultivated Dandelion advantage is obtained if the

seeds are all sown at one time, as greater uniformity in the size of

the root is obtainable, and in deep soil free from stones, the

seedlings will produce elongated, straight roots with few branches,

especially if allowed to be somewhat crowded on the same principles

that coppice trees produce straight trunks. Time is also saved in

digging up the roots which can thus be sold at prices competing with

those obtained as the result of cheaper labour on the Continent. The

edges of fields when room is allowed for the plough-horses to turn,

could easily be utilized if the soil is good and free from stones

for both Dandelion and Burdock, as the roots are usually much

branched in stony ground, and the roots are not generally collected

until October when the harvest is over. The roots gathered in this

month have stored up their food reserve of Inulin, and when dried

present a firm appearance, whilst if collected in spring, when the

food reserve in the root is used up for the leaves and flowers, the

dried root then presents a shrivelled and porous appearance which

renders it unsaleable. The medicinal properties of the root are,

therefore, necessarily greater in proportion in the spring. Inulin

being soluble in hot water, the solid extract if made by boiling the

root, often contains a large quantity of it, which is deposited in

the extract as it cools.

 

The roots are generally dried whole, but the largest ones may

sometimes be cut transversely into pieces 3 to 6 inches long.

Collected wild roots are, however, seldom large enough to

necessitate cutting. Drying will probably take about a fortnight.

When finished, the roots should be hard and brittle enough to snap,

and the inside of the roots white, not grey

 

The roots should be kept in a dry place after drying, to avoid

mould, preferably in tins to prevent the attacks of moths and

beetles. Dried Dandelion is exceedingly liable to the attacks of

maggots and should not be kept beyond one season.

 

Dried Dandelion root is 1/2 inch or less in thickness, dark brown,

shrivelled, with wrinkles running lengthwise, often in a spiral

direction; when quite dry, it breaks easily with a short, corky

fracture, showing a very thick, white bark, surrounding a wooden

column. The latter is yellowish, very porous, without pith or rays.

A rather broad but indistinct cambium zone separates the wood from

the bark, which latter exhibits numerous well-defined, concentric

layers, due to the milk vessels. This structure is quite

characteristic and serves to distinguish Dandelion roots from other

roots like it. There are several flowers easily mistaken for the

Dandelion when in blossom, but these have either hairy leaves or

branched flower-stems, and the roots differ either in structure or

shape.

 

Dried Dandelion root somewhat resembles Pellitory and Liquorice

roots, but Pellitory differs in having oil glands and also a large

radiate wood, and Liquorice has also a large radiate wood and a

sweet taste.

 

The root of Hawkbit (Leontodon hispidus) is sometimes substituted

for Dandelion root. It is a plant with hairy, not smooth leaves, and

the fresh root is tough, breaking with difficulty and rarely exuding

much milky juice. Some kinds of Dock have also been substituted, and

also Chicory root. The latter is of a paler colour, more bitter and

has the laticiferous vessels in radiating lines. In the United

States it is often substituted for Dandelion. Dock roots have a

prevailing yellowish colour and an astringent taste.

 

During recent years, a small form of a Dandelion root has been

offered by Russian firms, who state that it is sold and used as

Dandelion in that country. This root is always smaller than the root

of T. officinale, has smaller flowers, and the crown of the root has

often a tuft of brown woolly hairs between the leaf bases at the

crown of the root, which are never seen in the Dandelion plant in

this country, and form a characteristic distinction, for the root

shows similar concentric, horny rings in the thick white bark as

well as a yellow porous woody centre. These woolly hairs are

mentioned in Greenish's Materia Medica, and also in the British

Pharmaceutical Codex, as a feature of Dandelion root, but no mention

is made of them in the Pharmacographia, nor in the British

Pharmacopceia or United States Pharmacopceia, and it is probable,

therefore, that Russian specimens have been used for describing the

root, and that the root with brown woolly hairs belongs to some

other species of Taraxacum.

 

[Top]

 

---Chemical Constituents---The chief constituents of Dandelion root

are Taraxacin, acrystalline, bitter substance, of which the yield

varies in roots collected at different seasons, and Taraxacerin, an

acrid resin, with Inulin (a sort of sugar which replaces starch in

many of the Dandelion family, Compositae), gluten, gum and potash.

The root contains no starch, but early in the year contains much

uncrystallizable sugar and laevulin, which differs from Inulin in

being soluble in cold water. This diminishes in quantity during the

summer and becomes Inulin in the autumn. The root may contain as

much as 24 per cent. In the fresh root, the Inulin is present in the

cell-sap, but in the dry root it occurs as an amorphodus,

transparent solid, which is only slightly soluble in cold water, but

soluble in hot water.

 

There is a difference of opinion as to the best time for collecting

the roots. The British Pharmacopceia considers the autumn dug root

more bitter than the spring root, and that as it contains about 25

per cent insoluble Inulin, it is to be preferred on this account to

the spring root, and it is, therefore, directed that in England the

root should be collected between September and February, it being

considered to be in perfection for Extract making in the month of

November.

 

Bentley, on the other hand, contended that it is more bitter in

March and most of all in July, but that as in the latter month it

would generally be inconvenient for digging it, it should be dug in

the spring, when the yield of Taraxacin, the bitter soluble

principle, is greatest.

 

On account of the variability of the constituents of the plant

according to the time of year when gathered, the yield and

composition of the extract are very variable. If gathered from roots

collected in autumn, the resulting product yields a turbid solution

with water; if from spring-collected roots, the aqueous solution

will be clear and yield but very little sediment on standing,

because of the conversion of the Inulin into Laevulose and sugar at

this active period of the plant's life.

 

In former days, Dandelion Juice was the favourite preparation both

in official and domestic medicine. Provincial druggists sent their

collectors for the roots and expressed the juice while these were

quite fresh. Many country druggists prided themselves on their

Dandelion Juice. The most active preparations of Dandelion, the

Juice (Succus Taraxaci) and the Extract (Extractum Taraxaci), are

made from the bruised fresh root. The Extract prepared from the

fresh root is sometimes almost devoid of bitterness. The dried root

alone was official in the United States Pharmacopoeia.

 

The leaves are not often used, except for making Herb-Beer, but a

medicinal tincture is sometimes made from the entire plant gathered

in the early summer. It is made with proof spirit.

 

When collecting the seeds care should be taken when drying them in

the sun, to cover them with coarse muslin, as otherwise the down

will carry them away. They are best collected in the evening,

towards sunset, or when the damp air has caused the heads to close

up.

 

The tops should be cut on a dry day, when quite free of rain or dew,

and all insect-eaten or stained leaves rejected.

 

[Top]

 

---Medicinal Action and Uses---Diuretic, tonic and slightly

aperient. It is a general stimulant to the system, but especially to

the urinary organs, and is chiefly used in kidney and liver

disorders.

 

Dandelion is not only official but is used in many patent medicines.

Not being poisonous, quite big doses of its preparations may be

taken. Its beneficial action is best obtained when combined with

other agents.

 

The tincture made from the tops may be taken in doses of 10 to 15

drops in a spoonful of water, three times daily.

 

It is said that its use for liver complaints was assigned to the

plant largely on the doctrine of signatures, because of its bright

yellow flowers of a bilious hue.

 

In the hepatic complaints of persons long resident in warm climates,

Dandelion is said to afford very marked relief. A broth of Dandelion

roots, sliced and stewed in boiling water with some leaves of Sorrel

and the yolk of an egg, taken daily for some months, has been known

to cure seemingly intractable cases of chronic liver congestion.

 

A strong decoction is found serviceable in stone and gravel: the

decoction may be made by boiling 1 pint of the sliced root in 20

parts of water for 15 minutes, straining this when cold and

sweetening with brown sugar or honey. A small teacupful may be taken

once or twice a day.

 

Dandelion is used as a bitter tonic in atonic dyspepsia, and as a

mild laxative in habitual constipation. When the stomach is

irritated and where active treatment would be injurious, the

decoction or extract of Dandelion administered three or four times a

day, will often prove a valuable remedy. It has a good effect in

increasing the appetite and promoting digestion.

 

Dandelion combined with other active remedies has been used in cases

of dropsy and for induration of the liver, and also on the Continent

for phthisis and some cutaneous diseases. A decoction of 2 OZ. of

the herb or root in 1 quart of water, boiled down to a pint, is

taken in doses of one wineglassful every three hours for scurvy,

scrofula, eczema and all eruptions on the surface of the body.

 

[Top]

 

---Preparations and Dosages---Fluid extract, B.P., 1/2 to 2 drachms.

Solid extract, B.P. 5 to 15 grains. Juice, B.P., 1 to 2 drachms.

Leontodin, 2 to 4 grains.

 

---Dandelion Tea---

Infuse 1 OZ. of Dandelion in a pint of boiling water for 10 minutes;

decant, sweeten with honey, and drink several glasses in the course

of the day. The use of this tea is efficacious in bilious

affections, and is also much approved of in the treatment of dropsy.

 

Or take 2 OZ. of freshly-sliced Dandelion root, and boil in 2 pints

of water until it comes to 1 pint; then add 1 OZ. of compound

tincture of Horseradish. Dose, from 2 to 4 OZ. Use in a sluggish

state of the liver.

 

Or 1 OZ. Dandelion root, 1 OZ. Black Horehound herb, 1/2 OZ. Sweet

Flag root, 1/4 OZ. Mountain Flax. Simmer the whole in 3 pints of

water down to 1 1/2 pint, strain and take a wineglassful after meals

for biliousness and dizziness.

 

---For Gall Stones---

1 OZ. Dandelion root, 1 OZ. Parsley root, 1 OZ. Balm herb, 1/2 OZ.

Ginger root, 1/2 OZ. Liquorice root. Place in 2 quarts of water and

gently simmer down to 1 quart, strain and take a wineglassful every

two hours.

 

For a young child suffering from jaundice: 1 OZ. Dandelion root, 1/2

oz. Ginger root, 1/2 oz. Caraway seed, 1/2 oz. Cinnamon bark, 1/4

oz. Senna leaves. Gently boil in 3 pints of water down to 1 1/2

pint, strain, dissolve 1/2 lb. sugar in hot liquid, bring to a boil

again, skim all impurities that come to the surface when clear, put

on one side to cool, and give frequently in teaspoonful doses.

 

---A Liver and Kidney Mixture---

1 OZ. Broom tops, 1/2 oz. Juniper berries, 1/2 oz. Dandelion root, 1

1/2 pint water. Boil in gredients for 10 minutes, then strain and

adda small quantity of cayenne. Dose, 1 tablespoonful, three times a

day.

 

---A Medicine for Piles---

1 OZ. Long-leaved Plantain, 1 OZ. Dandelion root, 1/2 oz. Polypody

root, 1 OZ. Shepherd's Purse. Add 3 pints of water, boil down to

half the quantity, strain, and add 1 OZ. of tincture of Rhubarb.

Dose, a wineglassful three times a day. Celandine ointment to be

applied at same time.

 

In Derbyshire, the juice of the stalk is applied to remove warts.

 

http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/d/dandel08.html#recgal

 

JoAnn Guest

mrsjoguest

DietaryTipsForHBP

http://www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/MissingNutrients.html

http://www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Magnesium.html