544 COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 
Stem rather stout, smooth, two to six 
feet high, leafy to the flowering panicle. 
Leaves oblong-lance-shaped, smooth, some- 
what thick, entire or the lower ones with 
a few shallow teeth, sometimes spinulose 
on the margins, those of the stem sessile, 
clasping, and auricled at base. Heads in 
a long, loosely branched, terminal panicle 
and in smaller axillary clusters; each about 
@ quarter-inch broad, on slender pedicels, 
the rays reddish yellow; involucre cylin- 
dric, the outer bracts much shorter than 
the inner ones. Achenes oblong, flat- 
tened, shorter than the slender beak. 
Pappus fine and white. (Fig. 377.) 
Means of control the same as for Prickly 
Lettuce. 
BLUE LETTUCE 
Lactica pulchélla, DC. 
Other English names: Showy Lettuce, 
Large-flowered Blue Lettuce. 
Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds 
ae z and by rootstocks. 
ptr) peat creed i Time of bloom: June to August. 
tuca sagittifolia). X }. Seed-time: July to September. 
Range: Western Ontario to the North- 
west Territory and British Columbia, southward to Michigan, 
Kansas, New Mexico, and California. 
Habitat: All crops; most injurious in grain fields and meadows. 
A very handsome plant, but one of the most obnoxious weeds of 
its family and very hard to suppress. Stem slender, round, smooth, 
two to three feet tall. Leaves exceedingly variable, oblong to 
lance-shaped in outline, but the lower ones deeply cut or pinnatifid, 
with segments turned backward and often having margined 
petioles ; upper ones sessile and partly clasping, slightly toothed or 
entire, becoming linear near the top; all smooth and glaucous. 
The whole plant, even to its fleshy, light-colored rootstocks, is 
