Yellow and Orange 



Tali or Wild Lettuce; Wild Opium 



{Lactiica Canadensis) Chicory family 



Fiower-heads—^nmerous, small, about % in. across, involucre cyl- 

 indric, rays pale yellow ; followed by abundant, soft, bright 

 white pappus ; the heads growing in loose, branching, ter- 

 minal clusters. Stem : Smooth, 3 to 10 ft. high, leafy up to 

 the flower panicle ; juice milky. Leaves: Upper ones lance 

 shaped ; lower ones often i ft. long, wavy-lobed, often pm- 

 natifid, taper pointed, narrowed into flat petioles. 



Preferred Habitat— }Ao\^t, Open ground ; roadsides. 



Flowering Season — June — November. . . 



Distribution— G&org\?L, westward to Arkansas, north to the British 

 Possessions. 



Few gardeners allow the table lettuce {sativa) to go to seed ; 

 but as it is next of kin to this common wayside weed, it bears a 

 strong likeness to it in the loose, narrow panicles of cream-colored 

 flowers, followed by more charming, bright white little pompons. 

 Where the garden varieties originated, or what they were, nobody 

 knows. Herodotus says lettuce was eaten as a salad in 550 B.C. ; 

 in Pliny's time it was cultivated, and even blanched, so as to be 

 had at all seasons of the year by the Romans. Among the privy- 

 purse expenses of Henry Vlll. is a reward to a certain gardener 

 for bringing " lettuze " and cherries to Hampton Court. Quaint 

 old Parkinson, enumerating "the vertues of the lettice," says, 

 "They all cool a hot and fainting stomache." When the milky 

 •juice has been thickened {lactucarium), it is sometimes used as a 

 substitute for opium by regular practitioners— a fluid employed by 

 the plants themselves, it is thought, to discourage creatures from 

 feasting at their expense (see milkweed, p. 137). Certain cater- 

 pillars, however, eat the leaves readily ; but offer lettuce or poppy 

 foliage to grazing cattle, and they will go without food rather 

 than touch it. 



" What's one man's poison, Signor, 

 Is another's meat or drink." 



Rabbits, for example, have been fed on the deadly nightshade 

 for a week without injury. 



The Hairy or Red Wild Lettuce {L. hirsiita), similar to the 

 preceding, but often with dark reddish stem, peduncles, and tiny 

 flower-cups, the ray florets varying from yellow to pale reddish 

 or purplish, has longer leaves, deeply cut or lobed almost to the 



345 



