Lamb’s Lettuce vs. Corn Salad

In parts of Europe where many of our originals originated, they use a species of Valerianella for a salad green and pot herb. The species thus employed is Valerianella locusta. However did all that come about?

Well. Many moon's ago somebody hollered out. What’s this dern weed good for? Reckon I could eat it?

That’s right. Long ago a miserable peasant was out in the wheat field checking on the potential spring crop. I’m starving, declared the miserable peasant. Hmm. Maybe I could test this here weed out. Where’s my dern sheep? Lamb Chop. Come here, Lamb Chop. There now. That’s a good sheep. Eat some of this here weed. I need to figure out if its safe.

Thus began the long and colorful common name history of the genus Valerianella. Eventually, many of our ancestors came to these shores where, to everyone’s delight, they found lots more Valerianella.

Look at all this corn salad or lamb’s lettuce. Uh oh. This looks like the genuine article, but this here could be another of Satan’s many tricks. Somebody go find a sheep so we can test it out.

Yes. The newly arrived had stumbled upon an important potential green, growing wild in this strange new land, upon which shores they had only just debarked, thanks be to Jesus. The sheep soon confirmed that the particular green under inspection was the work of Jesus, not Satan. Everybody gave thanks and had greens for supper, for which they also gave thanks.

At the CB we have two kinds of Valerianella, country and western. Huh-huh. No, no, no. We have Valerianella amarella and Valerianella radiata, the latter, here depicted next door, far more abundant than the former.

You may think it’s easy to tell one species of New World Valerianella from another. Not in these parts it isn’t. No. Thanks to the key to Valerianella in the Manual of the Vascular Plants of Texas, hardly anybody ever figured out a species of Valerianella by that dudes or dudettes self, duda. Oh! Maybe one guy did, but he’s dead.

Course, since the whole genus is edible, the different species don’t matter anyway. Heck. We can just eat them all.



However, here at the CB, when it comes down to knowledge for knowledge sake the Druids, rise higher than the merely gustatory. Yes. At the CB we have two species that can be separated based on flower size, little versus littler. Well, flower size, plus the bloom sequence of the flowers. Do the flowers in the cymes bloom all together, thus making a showy arrangement?





One thing’s fer sure. This Cerceris is lots harder to get to species than the Valerianella it’s on.