Questioning Dandelions...

Ross Krouse - UNT Geography Major

Photos courtesy Wikipedia.org

Today while participating in my weekly mandala exercise, there hadn’t been much change in the habitat from last week. I focused on two individual plants instead of the “habitat” as a whole in my era. The plants were both Dandelions but they were in different stages of their lives. One dandelion was at an older point in its life were it had produced the cotton like seeds for which it uses wind to disperse. The other was in more of a flower like stage and resembled a bright yellow daisy but with more petals. I sat down right in front of them, observing as the gusts of wind whipped them around, wondering why they were even here in the first place. I asked my self questions such as why do I feel like I have known this plant all my life yet really know nothing about them, how are both of these plants the same species when they look nothing alike, how long did it take to create its own adaptation to succeed so well on a global level, and why do the plants have tiny thorns on their stems what are they warding off?