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Claytonia perfoliata
Also called Indian lettuce, Spring Beauty, Winter Purslane
Miner's lettuce is a small, cool-season annual succulent-leaved plant in the Montiaceae family, native to western North America. It grows best in cool, damp conditions and is typically harvested in early spring.
Claytonia perfoliata, commonly known as miner's lettuce or winter purslane, is a flowering plant in the family Montiaceae. It is an edible, fleshy, herbaceous, annual plant native to the western mountain and coastal regions of North America.
The species is native to Mexico and western north America as far north as British Columbia.
The common name of miner's lettuce refers to how the plant was used by miners during the California Gold Rush, who ate it to prevent scurvy. It is in season in April and May, and can be eaten as a leaf vegetable. The entire plant is edible, except the roots, and it provides vitamin C. Most commonly, it is eaten raw in salads, but it is not quite as delicate as cultivated lettuce. Sometimes, it is boiled like spinach, which it resembles in taste and chemical composition. Caution should be used because wild C. perfoliata can sometimes accumulate toxic amounts of sodium oxalate (as can happen in spinach).
Lanceleaf springbeauty · Siberian springbeauty · Virginia springbeauty · Purslanes
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Claytonia perfoliata by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
