Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

FLORIDA LETTUCE

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Lactuca floridana (L. ) Gaertn.

Morris County, Kansas

Annual or biennial

Height: 40-80(-120) inches

Family: Asteraceae - Sunflower Family

Flowering Period: August, September

Stems:

Ascending to erect, glabrous; latex white.

Leaves:

Basal and cauline, alternate. Basal leaves: blade ovate, 1.3 to 12 inches long, 1.2 to 7 inches wide, base tapered and sagittate, margins pinnately lobed or dentate, lower midrib sometimes pilose. Cauline leaves gradually reduced; blade ovate to lanceolate, base sagittate, margins pinnate to dentate.

Inflorescences:

Heads in panicle-like arrays; involucres cylindric, 1/3 to 1/2 inch; phyllaries 14-17, triangular or lanceolate to linear, ca. 1/3 inch.

Flowers:

Florets 10-16 ligules; corolla light blue, violet, or rarely white, .3 to .4 inch.

Fruits:

Achene body dark brown, 1/6 to 1/5 inch long, 1/16 to 1/12 inch wide, not marginally winged, minutely wrinkled, beak brown, absent or stubby, 0 to 1/12 inch, pappus bristles white, 1/6 to 1/4 inch.

Habitat:

Floodplain and oak-hickory forests and woodlands, stream banks, occasionally wet ditches and prairie ravines.

Distribution:

Principally east 1/2 of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Comments:

Lactuca, milk, alluding to the milky sap.

Florida lettuce