Prickly lettuce
Wild lettuce with small yellow heads flowering in summer drought; mornings give pollen and a little nectar during the midsummer dearth.
- Nectar
- Low
- Pollen
- Medium
- Flowering
- JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
- Height
- 0.3-1.5 m
- Life cycle
- Annual
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Prickly lettuce grows on roadsides, fallow fields, building sites and waste ground; it has a white milky sap and a spiny midrib on the leaves. It is the wild relative of cultivated lettuce. Its branched inflorescence carries many small, pale yellow heads. Honey bees visit them mainly for pollen; the amount of nectar is low.
Flowering
It flowers from July to September, in the harshest part of the summer drought. The heads open in the morning and close towards noon, so visits are concentrated in the morning hours.
Honey and pollen
It has no honey of its own. Its value lies in keeping pollen coming into the colony in midsummer, when other sources are dwindling.
Note for the beekeeper
Because its leaves turn to the sun and line up north–south, it is also known as compass plant. In dry regions it does not close the summer dearth on its own, but it helps keep the bees flying in the mornings. In North America it has become widespread as a weed.