Lettuce

Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) is a temperate annual or biennial plant of the daisy family Asteraceae. It is most often grown as a leaf vegetable. It is eaten either raw, notably in salads, sandwiches, hamburgers, tacos, and many other dishes, or cooked, as in Chinese cuisine in which the stem becomes just as important as the leaf. Both the English name and the Latin name of the genus are ultimately derived from lac, the Latin word for “milk,” referring to the plant’s milky juice. Mild in flavour, it has been described over the centuries as a cooling counterbalance to other ingredients in a salad. The lettuce plant has a very short stem initially (a rosette growth habit), but when it gradually blooms, the stem and branches lengthen and...