Learn how to positively identify Wild Lettuce (Lactuca) by its characteristics and distinguish it from common lookalikes in nature.
Wild lettuce (Lactuca) has several prominent historical medicinal uses in addition to being some species being choice edible greens! Many people seek this plant out in order to use it for medicinal purposes today. In order to accomplish this safely, we need to be able to positively identify wild lettuce.
The two species of wild lettuce that are mainly covered in this article are Canadian Wild Lettuce ( Lactuca canadensis ) and Prickly Lettuce or Wild “Opium” Lettuce ( Lactuca serriola ). The popular one that won’t be specifically covered is Lactuca virosa, h owever, the ID principles we will use apply across most of the genus. I hope you will find it helpful and be able to ID wild lettuce in the wild!
This article covers the characteristics of wild lettuce, wild lettuce look alikes (dandelion, sow thistle, and thistle) and also resources for how to use it.
If you are looking for a step-by-step guide on how to process wild lettuce into a concentrated extract, click here to read our in-depth article on extraction !
Wild lettuce, Lactuca spp., are members of the Cichorieae tribe of the Asteraceae family. This tribe is home to plants like dandelion, sow thistle, wild lettuce, and of course, chicory and they can all look very similar!
Wild lettuce is a weedy biennial plant. Usually growing as a basal rosette in its year one growth, then sending up a stalk and flowering in its year two growth.
Wild lettuce and most of the other members of its tribe produce a white milky liquid called latex when cut, so the presence of this latex along does not distinguish wild lettuce from its cousins!
In this article, we will explore the details that do distinguish wild lettuce from its cousins!
The above photo summarizes one of the important details shown in depth in the video. Looking for hairs along the underside of the midrib to point you towards a true wild lettuce (Lactuca) species. Using this detail will immediately help you to distinguish it from: dandelion, sow thistle, and thistle!
Young specimens that are in the basal rosette stage should nearly all have hair along the midrib. If a plant is in the bolted stage with a full stalk, you may find it more difficult to find hairs in some species, especially the top leaves. Look towards the bottom leaves of the stalk as some should still have hairs present.
Note: this works especially well with species like L. serriola, however with others such as L. canadensis finding the hairs may not be as consistent. The video explains further!
Another helpful distinguishing characteristic of wild lettuce species is the shape of their midrib when observed as a cross-section. In the photo below, we can clearly see that the wild lettuce specimen on the right side has a triangular cross-section, whereas the dandelion specimen on the left has an oval to circular cross-section.
