Just today I gave thanks for the first dandelions, marking another minute step in the slow progress of spring here in Malden, MA, USA. I have loved them ever since I was little, and I still have a 4-year-old's contempt for the grownups who consider them weeds. I tend to a Veblenesque explanation for that: they are cheap. If they were expensive, rich people would cultivate whole lawns of them.