Single Record
Participant Info
- Species
- Lactuca serriola [Lactuca scariola]
- Family
- Asteraceae
- CommonName
- prickly lettuce
- Presence
- YES
- Status
- exotic
- EarliestDate
- 1979
- LatestDate
- 2023
- Ecosystem
- basin, shrubland, foothill, ruderal, urban
- Geobotanical
- SSanjuans, NCristos, UBasin, LBasin
- Counties
- Conejos, Costilla, Rio Grande, Saguache
- Passes
- WildlifePreserves
- Russell Lakes
- Other Localities
- La Botica, Del Norte
- Comments
- So far in the Watershed few locations of prickly lettuce are all from ruderal ground: e.g., floodplain of the Rio Grande in Alamosa Co (1978); Forbes Park 2 miles E of Ft. Garland in Costilla Co (1984); by Hwy 17 west of Antonito in Conejos Co (1985); Russell Lakes SWA by the edge of the parking lot (2017); street side Del Norte in Rio Grande Co (2023). Another record is from La Botica in La Jara canyon whose habitat is labeled "riparian." This native of the Old World, which entered the USA in the second half of the 19th century, has come late to the Watershed. In the USA, it is now present in every state, and follows the Rio Grande drainage to a little past the Big Bend country of Texas. Note that the "dark blue stripe" on the abaxial side of the flowers, mentioned in Ackerfield 2022), is not always apparent. The flowers are quite small, 1/4 to 1/2 of an inch across.
- Annotation