N. ORD.—COMPOSIT-. Ce % 3: 
Tribe.—CICHORIACER. 
GENUS.—LACTUCA,* TOURN. 
SEX, SYST.—SYNGENESIA ASQUALIS. 
LACTUCA. 
LETTUCE. 
SYN.—LACTUCA CANADENSIS, LINN.; L. ELONGATA, MUBHL. (TYPE); L. 
ELONGATA, VAR. LONGIFOLIA. T. & G.; L. CAROLINIANA, WALT.; 
L. LONGIFOLIA, MICHX.; GALATHENIUM ELONGATUM, NUTT.; SON- 
CHUS PALLIDUS, WILLD. 
COM. NAMES.—WILD LETTUCE, FIRE-WEED,; TRUMPET-WEED,!; (FR.) 
LAITUE DU CANADA; (GER.) CANADISCHE LATTICH, 
A TINCTURE OF THE WHOLE PLANT, OF VARIOUS SPECIES, INCLUDING THIS. 
Description.—This ‘glabrous, glaucescent biennial, grows to a height of from 
4 tog feet. Stem erect, very leafy to the top, and copiously supplied with milky 
juice. Leaves alternate, mostly sinuate, pinnatifid below, lanceolate and entire 
above, all partly clasping by a sagittate base, and pale beneath; midrib naked, 
or rarely with a few sparse bristles ; margzus entire or sparingly dentate, especially 
near the base; éerminal lobe elongated. /nflorescence in a terminal, narrow, elon- 
gated, leafless panicle; Aeads 12- to 20-flowered ; flowers pale yellow, all sperfect: 
involucre a half-inch or less high, cylindraceous, irregularly calyculate, and slightly 
imbricated in two rows. Corolla ligulate in all the flowers of the head; ¢ude hairy ; 
ligules obscurely, if at all, notched at the apex. Receptacle naked. Akenes blackish, 
broadly oval, flat, wingless, rather longer than the beak, obscurely scabrous-rugu- 
lose, and lightly 1-nerved in the middle of each face; deak filiform, abrupt at the 
base, and expanded at the apex; pappus of soft, silvery-white hairs, on the dilated 
apex of the beak. 
History and Habitat.—Wild Lettuce is indigenous to North America, where 
it extends from Nova Scotia and Canada to Saskatchewan, and southward to 
Upper Georgia. It habits rich moist grounds along the borders of fields, thickets, 
and roads, where it blossoms in July and August. 
This species has been used in early practice as an anodyne, diaphoretic, laxa- 
tive, and diuretic, in many diseases, principally, however, in hypochondria, satyria- 
sis, nymphomania, phthisis pulmonalis, ascites, anasarca, and nervous complaints in 
general. 
* Latin, /ac, milk; on account of the milky juice. : 
+ Many plants have been given this name in different localities, on account of their growing parti 
burned fallows, Enechthites hieractfolius, Senecto aureus, Hieracium Canadense, and this, 
{ This name also designates Eupatorium purpureum. 
cularly on newly - 
