Taraxacum officinale and is derived from the word "opificina", later "officina", meaning a workshop or pharmacy. The flowers are used to make dandelion wine, the greens are used in salads, the roots have been used to make a coffee substitute (when baked and ground into powder) and the plant was used by Native Americans as a food and medicine. Dandelions are harvested from the wild or grown on a small scale as a leaf vegetable. The leaves (called dandelion greens) can be eaten cooked or raw in various forms, such as in soup or salad. They are probably closest in character to
Plant reproduction called runners or stolons, are important vegetative reproduction organs in some species, such as the strawberry, numerous grasses, and some ferns. Adventitious buds form on roots near the ground surface, on damaged stems (as on the stumps of cut trees), or on old roots. These develop into above-ground stems and leaves. A form of budding called suckering is the reproduction or regeneration of a plant by shoots that arise from an existing root system. Species that characteristically produce suckers include Elm ("Ulmus"), Dandelion ("Taraxacum"), and many members of the Rose family such as "Rosa" and "Rubus". Plants like onion ("Allium