Lactuca biennis

Biennial wild lettuce

Family: Asteraceae · Type: biennial · Native

Biennial wild lettuce is a native biennial found in northwestern California and northern central coastal regions in streambanks and conifer forests at elevations below 800 meters. Flowering from June to August, this plant produces pale blue to cream or pale yellow flowers in open heads 10 to 15 millimeters wide. Growing with tall, erect stems 0.5 to 4 meters high, it develops a robust biennial form with a distinctive taproot. Its leaves are diverse, ranging from lanceolate to ovate or elliptic, with lower leaves wing-petioled and upper leaves sessile and clasping, becoming reduced to linear bracts in the flowering cluster. The fruit is an oblong, mottled structure 5 to 7 millimeters long with 5 to 6 ribs on each face, topped by a short, stout beak.

Habitat: Streambanks, conifer forest

Bloom period: Jun-Aug

Elevation: < 800 m

Bioregions: NW, n CCo

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.