Lactuca pulchella / blue lettuce
- looks like prickly lettuce, but blue and without prickly stems or leaves
- clonal from spreading roots
Also known as: showy blue lettuce
Synonym: Mulgedium pulchellum
Blue lettuce looks a lot like prickly lettuce with two major differences. First, the flowers are blue, not yellow. Second, the stems and leaves are not prickly. Considering how widespread prickly is, that should be enough to identify this plant.
Blue lettuce is present throughout the US except in the SE and Indiana. It is, however, not especially common anywhere, and difficult to recognize if it isn’t flowering.
It is perennial, growing from a deep, creeping root. Thus, it often grows in patches, especially in meadows, thickets and moist places. It blooms, here, in July-ish.
Like other Lactuca spp., blue lettuce has a milky sap that contains lacturcarium. This has been collected for medicinal purposes. But as always, search out proper instructions before trying anything with this. The leaves are edible, with the same caveat.
Note: in the Valley, I have seen this only along the pathway from Driggs to Stateline Rd., just east of the recycling facility.
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