Prickly Lettuce (Lactuca Scariola, L. = Z. Serriola, L.)

The habitat of this plant is waste ground. The habit is erect. The juice is very acrid. The plant is rather rough below only. The branches are erect. The upper leaves are erect, arrow-shaped below, clasping, the auricle acute, spreading, wavy, runcinate. The radical leaves are inversely ovate to oblong, wavy, toothed, or runcinate. The flowerheads are yellow, scattered in a panicle, with long spreading branches. The phyllaries are heart-shaped, acute, smooth, juicy, tense. The fruit is grey, pale, with a beak the same length. The plant is 3-5 ft. high, flowering in July and August, and is a herbaceous perennial.

Least Lettuce (Lactuca Saligna, L.)

The habitat of this plant is waste ground, especially near the sea, shingle, or chalky places. The habit is erect. The plant is devoid of hairs, slender, not so bristly as in Z. virosa. The stem is wavy, with few branches. The upper leaves are entire, narrow-pointed, arrow-shaped below, clasping, the auricles spreading, acute. The radical leaves are deeply divided nearly to the base. The flowerheads are yellow, the panicle having short, erect branches, more or less spike-like, in alternate tufts, or long clusters. The fruit is grey, the beak twice as long as the fruit. The plant is 1 - 1 1/2 ft. high, flowering in July and August, and is a herbaceous perennial.

Sow Thistle (Sonchus Oleraccus, L.)

The habitat of this plant is fields and waste places. The habit is erect. The stem is branched, grooved, tubular. The leaves are flat, lance-shaped, half-clasping, the lower stalked (or stalkless), with acute teeth, entire or deeply divided to the base, the auricles spear-shaped, bluish-green below, lobed, with spinous teeth. The flowerheads are pale yellow, in a sort of umbel, smooth, rarely glandular, crowded, the flower-stalk cottony sometimes. The fruit is pale brown, transversely rough, and ribbed longitudinally, not beaked. The pappus is not stalked, with simple hairs. The plant is 1-3 ft. high, flowering from June to August, and is a herbaceous annual.

Salsify (Tragopogon Porrifolius, L.)

The habitat of this plant is wet meadows and waste places. The plant has the habit of Goat's Beard, and is erect, branched. The leaves are smooth, with a long, narrow point, channelled, the leaf-sheaths enlarged below, the leaves enlarged below, tapering or narrowed towards the point. The flowerheads are purple, in heads. The involucre exceeds the florets, and the stalk is thickened above. The ligtile is as long as the phyllaries. The marginal fruits have scale-like tubercles, especially on the ribs. The plant is 1-2 ft. high, flowering from May to July, and is a herbaceous perennial.