Lactuca serriola

This is the common prickly lettuce (Lactuca serriola), along the Cumberland Avenue roadside at the north end of Celery Bog Park.  Its habitat is disturbed areas which is why it so familiar in urbanized areas where mowing or earthmoving has occurred.  This plant has grown to maturity, as an annual it only takes a single season.  It will die off before winter and the tiny dandelion-like seeds will float away.  If the seed falls on another disturbed area it may grow into another prickly lettuce there.  If nobody hits this spot with a mower or a weedwhacker or herbicide, it will eventually be colonized by a different plant of a more stable ecosystem.

Link to Lactuca serriola:

Link to Lactuca serriola:

Link to Lactuca serriola:

Here is a view of Lactuca serriola in the same location, that has not yet matured to the flowering stage.  This is how we normally see it, before somebody calls it a weed and tries to destroy it.  Our culture has brainwashed us into thinking this way. 

Pictures taken June 30, 2012.