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Rainbow Burning Dandelions: Myth or Reality?

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Have you heard about burning dandelions?  There is a bit of a myth going around that dandelions burn in multicolor. I saw an amazing picture that made me really want to try it out! My kids and I were so excited!

Rainbow Burning Dandelions

That picture above is the one I have seen floating around online. Isn’t it amazing? Well we have more dandelions in our yard that I would like right now, so we decided to put this experiment to the test.

dandelion
The first victim.

Burning Dandelions: What Really Happens??

nature experiment Burning dandelions

The flame was FAST and out in seconds and was just plain orange. My kids thought it was cool, but were bummed that there were no vibrant colors. BUT, that did’t stop us from burning a whole bunch more!!

Here is one more shot of that same flower:

burning dandelion experiment

Still orange! 🙂

And here are some other ones:

dandelions on fire

Awesome, but just orange!  We couldn’t get enough of it.

Here is a slow motion video of our burning dandelions. You can see the actual colors and what happens.

Also, I did a little digging to see why this rumor spread and came across this hilarious picture! Somebody came across the original picture and put it next to the bright colored one. Somebody was just messing around and it spread like “wildfire”!

dandelions burning

So this was one myth we were sad to bust, but despite it not burning it bright colors, it was a very fun experiment to try. We loved it and with adult supervision is an easy little experiment to do with kids.  I still recommend doing it! So, be sure to give it a try and get rid of some of those pesky weeds.

burning dandelions

I am participating this month in a series of 31 Days of Outdoor STEM posted by Little Bins for Little Hands. There are some awesome ideas coming, so be sure to stop by and check it out!

Outdoor STEM

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8 Comments

  1. I’m glad we’re not the only ones who got skunked trying this! I saw that picture when it circulated last summer and we tried it out, with the same results you had. I don’t think anyone can resist an experiment that involves fire though… 🙂

  2. Interesting! I think my kids would still enjoy burning dandelions, even if there’s no rainbow. We recently learned about seed dispersal, and I can’t help but think, “If you burn them, all those little seeds can’t reproduce all over my yard!”

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