Plant Wiki

The open plant encyclopedia

Know any plant.
Grow it well.

Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.

  • 13,000+plants with full pages
  • 365,000+plant species worldwide
  • 220+countries covered

Common in

See all

The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.

What do you want to do?

Popular plants

Browse all plants

See them in 3D

All plants in 3D

Browse plants

Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.

Plant Wiki › Browse plants

Celtuce

Lactuca sativa var. angustana

Also called Lettuce, Blue Sow Thistle, Lettuces, Wild Lettuces

Celtuce
Photo: Downtowngal, CC BY-SA 3.0

Celtuce is a lettuce cultivar grown mainly for its thick edible stem, with the leaves also eaten. It is grown like lettuce: sow in cool weather and harvest the stem when about 30 cm tall.

Family
Asteraceae (Daisy family)
Light
Full sun
Water
Keep soil evenly moist so stems stay tender and do not turn bitter.
Soil
Fertile, well-drained garden soil rich in organic matter.
Temperature
10–24 °C; bolts in hot weather, so grow in cool seasons.
How easy
Easy
Safety
Not known to be toxic
Edible
Yes, some parts

About

Celtuce () (Lactuca sativa var. augustana, angustata, or asparagina), also called stem lettuce, celery lettuce, asparagus lettuce, or Chinese lettuce, is a cultivar of lettuce grown primarily for its thick stem or its leaves, which are known as A-choy. It is used as a vegetable. In China, the family is informally called woju (traditional Chinese: 萵苣; simplified Chinese: 莴苣; pinyin: wōjù), which is also the name of a cultivar. It is especially popular in both China and Taiwan, where the stem is interchangeably called wosun (traditional Chinese: 萵筍; simplified Chinese: 莴笋; pinyin: wōsǔn) or qingsun (青筍; 青笋; qīngsǔn).

How to grow it

It can be grown from seed and is sown from April through May in the Northern Hemisphere. The seeds can be planted in a set bed or a temporary nursery bed and then transplanted to the growing site. They should be spread 30 cm apart each way. The young (edible) leaves are ready about 4–5 weeks after planting and the edible stems are ready when about 30 cm tall. They are usually harvested between July and September.

The plant can suffer from aphid attacks.

Other Lactuca plants

Tall blue lettuce · Canada lettuce · Indian lettuce · Willowleaf lettuce · Iceberg lettuce · Romaine lettuce · Lettuce · Prickly lettuce · Bitter lettuce · Lettuce

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Celtuce 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.

Credits & terms

Identify a plant

Point at a leaf or flower and snap. One plant in frame works best.

Your photo
Starting camera…