LETTUCE 295 



profitable kinds are those producing many small cucumbers, 

 such as the variety known as the Boston Pickling. There 

 are many good varieties of cucumbers and they are offered 

 under various names. For earliest use the Early Russian is 

 perhaps the best, but it is small and seedy. 



THE SUNFLOWER FAMILY (Order Compositae) 



The Sunflower Family is the largest group of flowering 

 plants, yet it has given us only a very few garden vege- 

 tables and those are of little importance. Its plants are 

 distinguished by what the older botanists termed the "com- 

 pound flower." This consists of several or many flowers in 

 a head, surrounded by a set of bracts. Stamens are as 

 many as the lobes of the corolla (generally five), their an- 

 thers grown together by their edges. The ovary is one- 

 celled, inferior, containing a single seed. Besides the arti- 

 choke, lettuce, salsify, endive, and dandelion, whose cultural 

 directions are here given, there occur here the tansy, sun- 

 flower, daisies, corn-flower, Ageratum, Cineraria, chicory, 

 burdock, thistle, wild lettuce, compass plant, ragweed, fire- 

 weed, chrysanthemum, marigold, goldenrod, aster, yarrow, 

 zinnia, dahlia, and many other well-known plants. 



LETTUCE (Lactuca saliva] 



Description. Native of India or Central Asia. An 

 annual. Flowers are yellow, on seed stalks two or more 

 feet high; seeds small, flat, white or black, but sometimes 

 yellow or reddish-brown in color. The shape and size of 

 the leaves also vary greatly: sometimes they form a head 

 like the cabbage, and again only a loose bunch. The 

 foliage is generally of some shade of green, but some varie- 

 ties have leaves of a reddish color. 



