Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Magnoliophyta -- flowering plants

Class: Magnoliopsida -- dicotyledons

Order: Asterales

Family: Asteraceae (Compositae) -- sunflower

Common Name: blue lettuce, blue-flowered lettuce

Species Code: LAPU, LATAP

Origin: Native to moist meadows, shrub thickets, riparian areas, and open forest over much of North America except the southeastern US.

Rare: no

Form: forb, perennial from rhizomes, 20-100 cm tall, glabrous or glabrate; stems branched above, sap milky.

Mature height: 8-40 inches

Duration: perennial

Habitat Type: prairie, shrub thickets, forest, riparian

Wetland Indicator Status: FAC-

Leaves: alternate, linear to lanceolate, 5-18 cm long, entire or pinnatifid, glaucous beneath, petiolate, becoming reduced, entire and sessile above.

Flowers: heads 18-50; involucre 15-20 mm high in fruit, cylindrical, bracts imbricate; flowers all ligulate, perfect, blue.

Flower color: blue

Bloom: July, August

Fruit: achene, compressed, 4-7 mm long, glabrous, pale brown; pappus of numerous capillary bristles, 8-11 mm long , white.

Characteristics:
Lactuca tatarica (L.) C.A. Mey. var. pulchella (Pursh) Breitung is the currently accepted name.
Mulgedium pulchellum G. Don is used in some floras, including Flora of North America.
L. pulchella in St. John 1963, Piper & Beattie 1914, and Davis 1953.
Reproduces both sexually by seed and vegetatively by rhizomes.
2n=18 (Hitchcock et al 1969, Flora of North America Editorial Committee 1993, Baldwin et al 2004).
Flowers are all ligulate and perfect.
Fruit is an achene.
Seeds are windborne.
Rocky Mountain elk use the plants in the spring (Kufeld 1973). Forage value is poor for livestock, may be used sparingly by mammals. The seeds may provide some food for birds (Sedivec & Barker 1998).

Sun requirement: full

Soil moisture: mesic

Fire: Rhizomes probably survive low to medium intensity fires.

Hazards: Sometimes considered to be a weed in agricultural situations. The seeds are easily dispersed by wind and it also reproduces asexually from rhizomes. Rhizome fragments can be dispersed by tillage equipment. It does not appear to be a problem at present in farmland on the Palouse.

Stratification: no information available

Seed harvest: no information available

Seed cleaning: no information available

Planting duration: no information available

Seed insect problem: no information available

Seed shatter: wind dispersed

Seed size: medium

Seed harvest date: no information available

Herbaria: Specimen data and digital resources from The Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria

Key words: native upland perennial weedy forb

Propagation:
No information is available.
Reproduces both sexually by seed and vegetatively by rhizomes.

References:
Baldwin, B.G., S. Boyd, B.J. Ertter, D.J. Keil, R.W. Patterson, T.J. Rosatti, and D.H. Wilken (eds). 2004. Jepson Online Interchange for California Floristics. University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California, Berkeley, CA. Accessed 10/19/09 online at http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/interchange.html

Davis, Ray J. 1952. Flora of Idaho. Wm. C. Brown, Dubuque, Iowa. 827 pp.

Flora of North America Editorial Committee, eds. 1993+. Flora of North America North of Mexico. 7+ vols. New York and Oxford. Oxford University Press. Online at http://www.fna.org/FNA/

Hitchcock, C. Leo, Arthur Cronquist, Marion Ownbey, and J.W. Thompson. 1969. Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest. University of Washington Press. Seattle, WA. 5 vol.

Kufeld, Roland. 1973. Foods Eaten by the Rocky Mountain Elk. Journal of Range Management 26:106-113.

Piper, C.V., and R.K. Beattie. 1914. The Flora of Southeastern Washington and Adjacent Idaho. Lancaster, PA: Press of the New Era Printing Company. 296 pp.

Sedivec, Kevin K., and William T. Barker. 1998. Selected North Dakota and Minnesota Range Plants. North Dakota State University Department of Animal and Range Sciences Extension Bulletin EB-69. Fargo, North Dakota. Online at http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/ansci/range/eb69-2.htm Accessed 12/10/06.

St. John, Harold. 1963. Flora of Southeastern Washington and of Adjacent Idaho. 3rd edition. Outdoor Pictures. Escondido, CA.

Links:
Plant Profile from the USDA PLANTS Database
Species description from Flora of North America
Species information from the University of Washington Herbarium