Taraxacum Officinale

From Euell Gibbons' wonderfully informative field guide "Stalking The Wild Asparagus" I gleaned this information:

Expressed juice from dandelion roots was used in times past to improve the health of those who suffered from vitamin deficiencies in fall/winter. Roots dug up in spring can be treated and cooked like sliced potatoes. Newly sprouted greens from the springtime plant also make wonderful salads. Ground up roots may be used to make a coffee substitute, and the flowers are an important ingredient in making dandelion wine.

I'll not slam dandelions, no. As a child, I often picked these harbingers of spring to gift others. And suffered brown sticky fingers due to the "milk" oozing from broken stems. There was a way to weave them into a garland... In late summer I blew their downy fluff to "make a wish" and watched as myriads of white-winged brown seeds floated aloft on any available breeze, bound for new homes. Indeed, I could actually admire these composite flowers (flowers within flowers) for their tenacity (Can you ever really uproot one of these plants?) and proliferation. Don't tell anyone, but from time to time I have enjoyed the view of a field gold with dandelions (glad that it was not my own lawn). So, who designated them "weeds?"
This poem I wrote a while ago comes to mind:

Weed Lament
Dandelions' sunny heads
springing up where 'ere they please,
in and out of flower beds,
bringing gardeners to their knees!