How to Identify Dandelions in Marin

How to Identify Dandelions in Marin
Saturday, June 28, 2025 at 2 pm
Speaker/Facilitator: Bruce Homer-Smith
Location: Edgewater Room at Sausalito Library, 420 Litho St, Sausalito Ground Floor. Enter from Bee St.

Dandelions brighten our world spring through fall and delight us with their showy seed heads in a wide variety of beautiful patterns. At this workshop Bruce Homer-Smith will take you deep into the gorgeous and underappreciated world of the Marin dandelion tribe of the Asteraceae plant family. You will become familiar with dandelion flower parts and learn to identify the 29 species of dandelions in Marin County.

Bruce’s goal: to get you to come to a screeching halt every time you encounter a member of the dandelion tribe. Once you get acquainted with these beauties, you will keep learning more, as you encounter them in different seasons and settings. You will be digging into nature instead of passing it by.

Agenda:
- How Bruce came to fall in love with the dandelions.

• An introduction to Bruce’s website, PlantID.net.
  - Slides showing what to look for when you meet a member of the Asteraceae in the field.
• How to use Bruce’s “Field Key to the Marin Dandelion Tribe.” It is picture-based and uses easily observable field characteristics. We will have lots of copies on hand ($10 if you want to take one home).
• As a group, we will look at slides and use the key to identify species, then you will look at specimens and identify species on your own or in a small group.

Speaker/Facilitator: Bruce Homer-Smith is the author of [PlantID.net](https://plantid.net/Home.aspx), a non-commercial, educational website designed for people curious about California’s wild plants. He has been adding to it for 14 years, ever since he retired as a database developer. He uses pictures and short descriptions to tell stories about the plants in our local parks. His goal is to show you enough so that you can recognize and make friends with the plants you encounter.

Bring:
- Dandelions (flowers and leaves) or what you think might be members of the Dandelion Tribe. Look for plants with big heads, different kinds of leaves, flowers along the stem, etc in your neighborhood or alongside roads. We will use Bruce’s key to identify them.
- A hand lens or magnifying glass if you have one to see the beauty of the flowers up close. (You can use the dandelion key without any flower magnification.)

Transportation and Parking: Traffic can be heavy during Sausalito’s summer weekends. Limited parking is available at the Sausalito Library and the surrounding streets. Consider carpooling and transit. Golden Gate Transit Route 130 stops nearby, traveling between San Rafael & San Francisco.

Bay Model Combination Adventure: The Bay Model Visitor Center with ample parking is a 15-minute walk away. On Saturdays, it is open from 9 to 4, with a guided tour at 11 am. Be sure to enjoy the Bay Model Pollinator Garden installed and maintained by Marin Chapter.