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Lactuca hirsuta
Also called Downy Lettuce, Hairy Wood Lettuce, Red Wood Lettuce, Red Stemmed Lettuce, Tall Hairy Lettuce
Hairy lettuce is a biennial wild lettuce native to eastern North America, grown mostly as a wild plant rather than in gardens. It forms a tall, branching stem with small blue flower heads and is generally best left in a meadow or woodland edge.
Lactuca hirsuta, the hairy lettuce or downy lettuce, is a North American species of wild lettuce. It is widespread across much of central Canada and the eastern and central United States from Ontario, Québec, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia south as far as Texas, Louisiana, and Florida.
Lactuca hirsuta is an biennial herb in the dandelion tribe within the daisy family growing from a taproot a height of up to 200 cm (79 in; 6.6 ft). The top of the stem bears a multibranched inflorescence with many flower heads. Each head contains 12–24 blue ray florets but no disc florets. The fruit is a brown achene.
Cicerbita macrophylla · Lactuca aculeata · Lactuca alpestris · Tall blue lettuce · Canada lettuce · Lactuca dissecta · Lactuca dolichophylla · Woodland lettuce · Grassleaf lettuce · Indian lettuce · African Lettuce · Biannual lettuce
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Lactuca hirsuta 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.
