Florida lettuce, or woodland lettuce, is a true lettuce that can be eaten as a cooked or salad green. It has lavender to purplish-blue flowers and grows statewide.
Florida lettuce is an annual or biennial wildflower with open, branched clusters of bluish flowers.
The flowerheads have up to 17 florets per head. There are no disk flowers. The ray flowers light blue to nearly white, opening a few at a time.
Blooms August–October.
The leaves are mostly on the stems, to 12 inches long, variable, usually deeply lobed almost to the midrib, and toothed.
All parts of plant bleed a pure white, milky latex.
- A variant form of this species occurs fairly commonly in Missouri; it has unlobed, toothed leaves.
Similar species: Seven species of Lactuca have been recorded in our state. See Ecosystem Connections for more information on our other six species.
Height: to 8 feet.
Common statewide.
Habitat and Conservation
Occurs along banks of streams and rivers, bottomland forests, rich upland forests, savannas, sand savannas, glades, bases of bluffs, margins of ponds and lakes, railroads, roadsides, and open, disturbed areas.
Status
Native Missouri wildflower. An edible plant.
Human Connections
This is a true lettuce and is edible in salads or cooked as “greens.” It can be fairly bitter, however, especially after the plant has bolted (developed flowers), which is when this species is most easy to spot.
A close relative, garden lettuce (Lactuca sativa), is the cultivated lettuce we know from our salads. It, too, bleeds a milky sap. It has many cultivated varieties: iceberg, Romaine, butterhead (Boston, or Bibb), red and green leaf lettuce, for example.
Ecosystem Connections
The caterpillars of several moths and butterflies feed on this and other lettuces, wild and cultivated.
There are 6 other species of Lactuca recorded for Missouri; below, they are listed more or less in order by how common or widespread they are.
- Canada wild lettuce (Lactuca canadensis) has orangish flowers; its leaves do not clasp the stems and are either entire (unlobed) without prickles or deeply lobed with prickles. The latex is light tan or pale orange. Native; common statewide.
- Prickly lettuce (Lactuca serriola) has light yellow flowers that turn blue upon wilting; its clasping leaves either lack lobes or are deeply lobed and cut, always with prickly teeth on the margins and midrib on the underside of the leaf. Introduced; scattered to common statewide.
- Willow-leaved lettuce (Lactuca saligna) has yellow flowers, narrow leaves, and spikelike clusters of flowerheads (the flowerheads appear almost stalkless along the plant's main, upright stem). Introduced; scattered nearly statewide; less common or absent from the Ozarks and Bootheel lowlands.
- Downy or hairy lettuce (Lactuca hirsuta) has yellow to orangish flowers; it is similar to Canada wild lettuce but is hairier, with larger flowerhead receptacles. Latex is light tan or pale orange. Native; uncommon in southern Missouri.
- Blue lettuce (Lactuca tatarica var. pulchella, syn. Lactuca pulchella) has showy purplish-blue flowers that are large, almost 1¼ inches across and flattened achenes ("seeds") with 3–5 ridges on each face. Latex white. Native; uncommon in northwestern Missouri, especially in the loess hill prairies of that region. A Missouri species of conservation concern (critically imperiled).
- Western wild lettuce (Lactuca ludoviciana), a yellow-flowering species, is uncommon in Missouri, known only from a few historical collections (Atchison and Greene counties). A Missouri species of conservation concern (critically imperiled).
