You don’t have to visit a nature reserve or a botanical garden to find interesting plants. Whenever I am out shopping, I keep my eyes peeled for plants growing in the cracks in the pavement, in the gutters and other forgotten corners of our town centres.
There are many different species that eke out a meagre existence under these difficult circumstances, but I want to draw your attention to just one, which also has a connection to our summer salads.
Wall Lettuce (Mycelis muralis), says what it does on the ‘can’, and grows on walls. Having a love of lime-rich soils, the cementing mortar is a perfect alternative. This slender plant, growing up to 1 metre tall is frequently suffused with maroon. You might be surprised to hear that it is a member of the daisy family. Many of the family have a hundred or more small flowers or florets forming the flower head or inflorescence. Just think of the Dandelion, Thistles or Ragworts, with the resulting production of a large number of feathery seeds. In Wall Lettuce’s case it has just five ‘ray’ florets, the least number of any member of the daisy family.
Although Wall lettuce is edible, I for one will still be getting my lettuce from the vegetable section at the local store rather than foraging on the streets. ‘Salad’ lettuce (Lactuca sativa) is closely related to the Wall Lettuce and also a member of the daisy family. If that sounds hard to believe, take a look at a ‘bolted’ lettuce, which produces a multitude of small yellow Dandelion-like flowers before setting seed.
Originally cultivated by ancient Egyptians 4,000 years ago, it was the Greeks and Romans who took it to their hearts. Romans giving it the name Lactuca (as in lactation), alluding to the milky latex exuding from its cut stem. It is also where we get the name lettuce.
Lettuce is mostly water, 95% to be precise, and provides little carbohydrate, protein or fat, but is useful for fibre, minerals and Vitamins C and E. There are hundreds of different varieties, some like ‘Romaine’ were grown in the Roman papal gardens, while the Greek island of ‘Kos’ was the centre of lettuce farming in the Byzantine period (giving us todays ‘Cos’ lettuce. Who would have predicted your next shopping trip would be so botanically interesting? Never stop being inquisitive.