9596.000 Lactuca L. - Lettuces

Annual, biennial or perennial herbs. Leaves radical or cauline and alternate. Involucre usually cylindric. Phyllaries 3-5-seriate. Receptacle without scales. Florets yellow, whitish, purplish or blue. Achenes beaked or at least somewhat attenuate above, with ascending hairs or rough projections on the ribs or at least on the margins; ribs unequal. Pappus several-seriate of uniform barbellate setae, rarely with an outer ring of minute setae.

Derivation of name: from lac, Latin for milk, referring to the milky juice.

Worldwide: c. 75 species, cosmopolitan but many in northern temperate zones

Botswana: 2 taxa.