Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Asterales > Asteraceae > Lactuca > Lactuca serriola

Lactuca serriola (Wild Lettuce)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Lactuca serriola, also called prickly lettuce, milk thistle (not to be confused with Silybum marianum, also called milk thistle) compass plant, and scarole, is an annual or biennial plant in the dandelion tribe within the daisy family. It has a slightly fetid odor and is commonly considered a weed of orchards, roadsides and field crops. It is the closest wild relative of cultivated lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.). Lactuca serriola is known as the compass plant because in the Sun the upper leaves twist round to hold their margins upright.
View Wikipedia Record: Lactuca serriola

Infraspecies

Lactuca scariola f. integrifolia
Lactuca scariola var. integrifolia
Lactuca serriola f. integrata
Lactuca serriola f. integrifolia
Lactuca serriola var. serriola

Attributes

Dispersal Mode [3]  Anemochory
Edible [1]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [1]  Hermaphrodite
Hazards [1]  The mature plant is mildly toxic;
Lifespan [1]  Biennial
Pollinators [1]  Bats
Structure [4]  Herb
Usage [1]  The seed contains 35.2% of a semi-drying oil; It is used in soap making, paints, varnishes etc;
Height [1]  4.92 feet (1.5 m)
Width [1]  12 inches (0.3 m)
Light Preference [2]  Mostly Sunny
Soil Acidity [2]  Neutral
Soil Fertility [2]  Intermediate
Soil Moisture [2]  Moist
View Plants For A Future Record : Lactuca serriola

Protected Areas

Ecosystems

Predators

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Golovinomyces cichoracearum[6]
Hyaloperonospora parasitica[6]
Pollinator of 
Syritta pipiens (thick-legged hoverfly)[6]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 2ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
♦ 3Paula S, Arianoutsou M, Kazanis D, Tavsanoglu Ç, Lloret F, Buhk C, Ojeda F, Luna B, Moreno JM, Rodrigo A, Espelta JM, Palacio S, Fernández-Santos B, Fernandes PM, and Pausas JG. 2009. Fire-related traits for plant species of the Mediterranean Basin. Ecology 90: 1420.
Paula S. & Pausas J.G. 2013. BROT: a plant trait database for Mediterranean Basin species. Version 2013.06.
♦ 4Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
♦ 5Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 6Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 7Predicting seasonal diet in the yellow-bellied marmot: success and failure for the linear programming model, G.P. Edwards, Oecologia (1997) 112:320-330
♦ 8Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0