Translations:Benutzer:Arian/Klett-Mini-Test/1503/en

The Milky Sap

Alongside the dandelion, several other composite species — among them chicory (Cichorium intybus), prickly lettuce (Lactuca serriola), perennial sowthistle (Sonchus arvensis), as well as the spurge family (Euphorbiaceae) — carry milky sap in their tissues. This is a white, milky emulsion that, in the case of the dandelion — and this is what makes it singular — runs uniformly through the whole plant in tubular channels. From the turnip-like swollen root, they reach through the stalk held back into the root collar, into the midrib of the leaves, and finally up through the air-filled flower stalk all the way to the receptacle. The milky sap binds together the members of the dandelion — which appear so markedly set apart from one another — into a whole. One stands before a riddle! Must this milky sap not be ascribed just as much a saline as a sulfurous nature — and how much more still a mercurial one? Does it not unite all three qualities within itself? Does the fundamental principle of the flowering plant even exist here — the refinement of the mineral-substantive and its etherization in the flowering process?