Gone to seed

I have to give grudging admiration to the Dandelion, that much-maligned, often poisoned, and mostly unloved weed that most likely came over with the first European colonists, took root—deep, deep root—and became so ubiquitous a part of our flora that you'd think Taraxacum officinale was a bona fide native American. It might as well be since it is never going away. Indeed, "dent de lion"—a French name for the plant that translates into "lion's tooth" and refers to the ragged, tooth-shaped leaves—is engrained enough that I use it as a signpost of the season and start looking for it in April to gauge the progress of the natural year. The last few days have marked the dandelion's second rite of passage: the turning of all those hundreds of individual florets that make up the composite flower into soon-to-be-windblown seeds. Each is a potential plague on your lawn, but together, they're a photographer's delight.