Wild Lettuce.Lactuca hirsuta.
Found on waysides, and edges of thickets, in July.
The simple leafy stalk grows to be 3 or 4 or 5 feet high; it is hollow, and large, with a strong fibre, a thick, milky and bitter juice, and a tough skin whose surface is somewhat hairy. The color is usually a dark purplish-red.
The long leaf is deeply cut, or lobed, even almost to the wide midrib,—the lobes pointing toward the base of the leaf,—the tip taper-pointed; the upper leaves are slightly or not at all lobed; the surface is smooth above, sometimes hairy on the underside of the midrib. The arrangement is alternate, the leaves partly clasping the stalk. In color a full green, the midrib of the lower leaves a dark reddish-purple.
The minute flowers are collected in small heads, set in vase-shaped green cups; their color varies from a light, dull lavender, to a dingy white. The heads grow in branching clusters from the summit of the stalk.
The stout, tall, dark red stalk and broadly veined leaves make this a conspicuous inhabitant of the roadside; its small flowers however do not seem to fulfil the promise put forth by this vigorous growth. The dark brown, flattened seeds have fine, white, dandelion-like plumes.