XXXIII 
LETTUCE IS RELATED TO THE SUNFLOWER 
I SN'T IT ODD that in the 
classification of plants the 
botanists have found that let¬ 
tuce, which one eats with 
French dressing for dinner, is 
not related to the cabbage 
which it resembles or to cel¬ 
ery or spinach or any other 
leafy vegetable, but to the sunflower! 
The sunflower heads a family of which the daisy is a 
prominent member. So are the thistle, the blue corn¬ 
flower, and the radiant goldenrod. A member of the fam¬ 
ily that makes a closer approach to the lettuce plant is 
the dandelion. This has a rosette of leaves hugging the 
ground, as has the lettuce plant. It is even sometimes 
cultivated as a leaf vegetable. 
Yet lettuce is not a bred-up dandelion. The dandelion 
sends up a single tube when its time comes to flower, 
while the lettuce sends up a spray bearing many flowers. 
This shows that they are cousins, not brothers. 
One might not realize that the lettuce is a member of 
the daisy and sunflower family until it came to bloom. 
Then he would see that it had qualities which put it into 
that family and show it to be different from all other 
families in the world. This family has a composite 
bloom. This means that its flower is a big one made up 
66 
