A Short Ecology of Lactuca ludoviciana

The big bounce for this humble plant came early. Yes. This species was named for King Louis X. Uh. King Louis X was the tenth king of France named Louis. He was pretty famous even for a king.

So getting named after a famous French king should have been a great promotion for the species, that plus edibility. But no. Try to find a picture of Lactuca ludoviciana on the internet. It’s not easy. All you get are line drawings.

Crumby mentioned that Lactuca ludoviciana, a wild lettuce, is edible. Deer, for example, super love it. That’s why at the CB we encourage plenty of Lactuca ludoviciana, believing the deer will eat the Lactuca instead of other weeds the Druids would rather the deer did not eat. Does that make sense?

Also, Lactuca is probably a direct competitor with Taraxacum, the sow thistles. We would lots rather have wild lettuce than sow thistle any day.

Here we see a bud and some ripe achenes.

Karl the Tracker Druid told Ray about one time when he had this tracker job in northern Louisiana. It was terrible. They ran out of food because at that time, all three of the principals involved in the tracking event were vegetarians. And as everyone knows, the only food humans vend in northern Louisiana is fried meat.

For upwards of seven days and nights, Prissy, Ajax and Karl had nothing to eat but a little Lactuca ludoviciana. But just that little bit of lettuce sustained all three of them, a smart horse, a mighty mule and Karl. Yes. They were sustained by the Goddess and a little lettuce until that mission or tracking event was entirely accomplished.

But then the CB also features Lactuca serriola, an additional wild lettuce. Lactuca serriola is apt to actually flower, whereas L. ludoviciana must be mostly cleistogamous. Anyway, it’s way easier to take photos of the former's flowers, Lactuca serriola, than the latters.







Insects do come to wild lettuce. Here is a beetle, likely Trirhabda sp. on L.ludoviciana.









And here is a sweat bee on L. serriola. Mercy. Yes. Insects come to the flowering lactuca, too.








Finally, let the druids leave you with this thought. The achenes are sposed to blow about in the breeze, attached to those nifty parachutes. Sometimes, s* don't work out. Do it?








For goodness sakes! Crumby nearly forgot the comparitive peekture of Lactuca serriola achenes. Here those are. See, more ribs, hairier.








But Crumby, you forgt the L. ludoviciana in flower. It blooms in the afternoon, whereas L. serriola blooms of a morning. Goodness gracious! Temporal separation. But so what considering this bodacious flower. Uh. The discriminating might wish to compare this picture of an actual L. ludoviciana flower to the flowers depicted in the line drawings available on the internet and even in learned botanical texts.