Do you like to take photos of native Canadian wildflowers in their natural habitat?

Please join my Dandelion project! I’m building a collection of images that show a Common Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) growing in close proximity to native species.

Even a very small child will recognize a Common Dandelion and joyfully blow its puffball into the air. On iNaturalist 8,848 participants list over 21,000 observations of the plant across Canada (May 2026). But, of course, this Euro-Asian plant — both maligned and cultivated — is an introduced species that doesn’t actually belong here.

I am using the Dandelion as both a proxy and a marker of human settler behaviour in the land now known as Canada. Can the Dandelion present itself as a symbol of our own human complex and layered relationship to the land itself?

As part of the project, I’m building a collection of photos taken on protected land such as municipal, provincial or national parks and also in remote wilderness areas. If you see that pretty (or perhaps pesky) yellow flower, or its puffball, or its leaves crowding around native species, please snap a photo and send it to this email address: nandyheule@gmail.com. I can post your photo on this website if you provide permission and a location where you made the observation. Photo credit will be provided! Thanks!