Common dandelion is an herbaceous perennial native to Eurasia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taraxacum_officinale). Recent classifications place it in subfamily Cichorioideae and tribe Cichorieae. Dandelion has become naturalized throughout of the temperate world, and it is a common weed in lawns, pastures, and on roadsides. European populations include diploid (n=8), triploid (n=12), and rarely tetraploid (n=16) cytotypes (http://www.tropicos.org/Project/IPCN), whereas population from elsewhere in the world are mainly triploid. In general, diploid plants are strictly sexual, triploids are obligate apomicts, and tetraploids are partial apomicts. The genome size of the triploid cytotype is circa 1,254 Mbp http://data.kew.org/cvalues/).

• Nucleotide sequences (275 total) on GenBank as of 12/2012: available here
• ESTs (41,296 Sanger reads) on GenBank as of 12/2012: available here

We generated the Sanger ESTs described above, which we have used to determine the distribution of whole genome duplications in the Compositae.

Barker MS, NC Kane, A Kozik, RW Michelmore, M Matvienko, SJ Knapp, and LH Rieseberg. 2008. Multiple paleopolyploidizations during the evolution of the Asteraceae reveal parallel patterns of duplicate gene retention after millions of years. Molecular Biology and Evolution 25:2445-2455.
Lai Z, NC Kane, A Kozik, KA Hodgins, KM Dlugosch, MS. Barker, M Matvienko, Q Yu, KG Turner, SA Pearl, GDM Bell, Y Zou, C Grassa, A Guggisberg, KL Adams, JV Anderson, DP Horvath, RV Kesseli, JM Burke, RW Michelmore, and LH Rieseberg. 2012. Genomics of Compositae weeds: EST libraries, microarrays, and evidence of introgression. American Journal of Botany, In review.