Plant · P-292

Celtuce

Lactuca sativa var angustana

Celtuce, also called stem lettuce, is grown mainly for its thick, crisp stalk rather than its coarse, mild leaves - the bitter skin is peeled off before the stalk is eaten raw or cooked, with a flavour people compare to celery, artichoke or asparagus. Its stem needs three to four months to swell, so it only works sown in early autumn for a late-winter harvest; a spring sowing runs into heat before the stalk is worth cutting, wasting months of bed space. The plant carries the same bitter, sedative sap found in lettuce and wild lettuce, concentrated most once it flowers, and the mature flowering plant is genuinely toxic in quantity, not just bitter. It is harvested well before flowering in normal use, so that toxicity rarely comes into play.