''Lactuca pulchella'', known as blue lettuce, common blue lettuce, or wild blue lettuce, is a North American
flowering plant
Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...
in the sunflower family,
Asteraceae
Asteraceae () is a large family (biology), family of flowering plants that consists of over 32,000 known species in over 1,900 genera within the Order (biology), order Asterales. The number of species in Asteraceae is rivaled only by the Orchi ...
. Some authors place it as a subspecies or variety of a broader concept of ''
Lactuca tatarica
''Lactuca tatarica'', known as blue lettuce, is a Eurasian flowering plant in the tribe Cichorieae within the family Asteraceae
Asteraceae () is a large family (biology), family of flowering plants that consists of over 32,000 known species ...
'', while others consider ''L. tatarica'' to occur only in Europe and Asia. ''Lactuca pulchella'' (with ''L. tatarica'' and others) is commonly separated into the genus ''Mulgedium'', as ''Mulgedium pulchellum''.
Uses
Among the
Zuni people
The Zuni (; formerly spelled ''Zuñi'') are Native American Pueblo peoples native to the Zuni River valley. The Zuni people today are federally recognized as the Zuni Tribe of the Zuni Reservation, New Mexico, and most live in the Pueblo o ...
of
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...
in the southwestern United States, the dried root gum of ''Lactuca pulchella'' has been used as
chewing gum
Chewing gum is a soft, cohesive substance designed to be chewed without being swallowed. Modern chewing gum is composed of gum base, sweeteners, softeners/plasticizers, flavors, colors, and, typically, a hard or powdered polyol coating. Its tex ...
.
References
pulchella
Flora of Northern America
{{Cichorieae-stub