Would you call a dandelion a weed or a flower?

[blindedd]

Someone got angry at me because I said a dandelion is more commonly seen as a weed (and called one) rather than a flower.
They said it's a flower only and that I was correcting them.

Weed

Flower

Both

Updates

+1 y

Hey just to clarify the question even more - I’m not asking you guys to pick between one or the other of what a dandelion definitely is.

Rather if you guys were talking about landscaping or just gardens or just like in your lawn what would you refer to it as.

I said a weed crown instead of a flower crown and my friend looked at me funny and said it was a flower

[NamerOfStars]

A "weed" is a plant growing where you don't want it to. Dandelions are entirely edible, compared with the European grasses that can't survive in this climate with supplementary water- which we provide, while parts of the country are in a drought, all for a plant we can't eat.

If it were up to me, growing grass would be illegal; take some native plants, or wildflowers. Dandelions, again, you can EAT- I've been in a place economically where I'd have to go scavenging through neighbor's yards to search for them, since they were the only calories I'd have that day. With food prices rising, growing your own makes more sense than ever.

If you ever read about a guy snapping, buying six tons of dandelion seeds, and sneaking through neighborhoods spreading them, as some kind of Johnny Dandelionseed, that'll probably be me. Technically, I'm even a "Florida Man" now, so there'd be some nice synergy there.

[BlackUrsidae]

Botanically speaking a dandelion is a collection of multiple flowers on ond stem. I consider it to be one because the term weed isn't a botanical one, it's just the term used for an unwanted plant like crab grass

[blindedd]

So does that mean it can be seen as both.

[BlackUrsidae]

Yeah technically. The terms are independent of each other. It's like calling something a truck and an automobile

[purplepoppy]

A weed is just a plant growing in the wrong place. On your lawn it's a weed, in a meadow it's a wildflower. Old gardening books /seed catalogues even class it as a vegetable.

[blindedd]

so both right? my friend was very adamant that i was wrong

[purplepoppy]

Yes you're both right

[dustybiker]

Since you can make wine out of it I give it credit. A hearty flower.

[Phoenix-gb]

Any flower growing where it is not wanted could be considered a weed by the gardener.

[blindedd]

so it would be called both right? I've heard multiple say that it is a weed with the top of a flower.

[exitseven]

Tony Randall used to talk about a field in Ireland he visited. He said how beautiful it was. It was a field of dandelions. I think it is both depending on your point of view.

[MrTaboo]

A plant is only a weed when you don't want it there.

[blindedd]

yea - and that’s often for dandelions and they refused to call it a weed

[SignedAutographs]

Must have been republicans you were talking to. It's always one or the other with them

[omnivert]

Flower because its used in wines.

[clemdenim]

I have eaten dandelion greens, very tasty

[Anonymous]

It’s a weed