It’s a remarkable plant, the Dandelion.
It is said there are three stages of Man, or Woman, at least according to the Sphinx’s riddle.
The dandelion also has a trinity of forms, each distinct. First, the fat composite flower heads, shining bright yellow in field, hedgerow and garden. Then the spherical pom-pom seed head, a thousand parachutes, soft down, awaiting the wind. Finally, the bracts that once supported the flower are left behind.
Now bereft, they become something else entirely. Almost alien in form, not out of place in The Dying Earth; skeletal stars, gazing towards the heavens.