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Corn Salad—Valerianella locusta (L.) Betcke1

James M. Stephens 2

Corn salad is also called lamb's lettuce and fetticus. It is a salad plant, but may also be used as a cooking green. Since it does not have a sharp distinctive flavor, it is often mixed with other more tasty greens such as mustard.

Description

Corn salad forms a rather large rosette of leaves that are spoon-shaped to round, and up to 6 inches long. Sometimes the leaves are covered or bunched together to exclude light for the purpose of blanching.

Figure 1. Corn salad
Figure 1.  Corn salad
Credit: Tarquin~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0

Culture

The vegetable plant is grown in Florida similarly to endive or lettuce. It tolerates cool weather, so may be sown from seed in September through May. Space the rows 12 to 18 inches apart, and the plants about 6 inches apart in the row.

In trial plantings at Gainesville, FL, corn salad did not grow as well as expected.

Footnotes

1. This document is HS588, one of a series of the Horticultural Sciences Department, UF/IFAS Extension. Original publication date May 1994. Revised September 2015. Reviewed October 2018. Visit the EDIS website at https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu.
2. James M. Stephens, professor emeritus, Horticultural Sciences Department; UF/IFAS Extension, Gainesville FL 32611.

Publication #HS588

Release Date:October 29, 2018

Related Experts

Stephens, James M.

Specialist/SSA/RSA

University of Florida

Related Collections

Part of Minor Vegetable Handbook

    Fact Sheet

    Contacts

    • Danielle Treadwell