Diario de edamontalieu

My observed species, taraxacum officinale (or common dandelion), is a flowering herbaceous perennial plant of the dandelion genus in the Asteraceae family. Interestingly, Taraxacum officinale and Taraxacum bellicum are sister groups, since they share a common ancestor.

One unique adaptation of taraxacum officinale is its development as a "rosette" structure: The growth from a single seed of green leaves in a circle structure called "rosette" is important to guarantee the dandelion's growth because, if any other seed tries to grow near that area, they are prevented from doing so by the shade of the rosette structure. This allows the dandelion to get all the nutrients and water from the surrounding soil with minimal competition.

One common adaptation of most of those plants is that they grow early in the spring with long, quick growing leaves. This enables the plants to absorb a maximal amount of sunlight before forest trees leaf and partially block sunlight.