Please read text!
Indian Lettuce Lactuca Indica Willowleaf Seeds
Packet of 30+ home grown seeds!
A very uncommonly grown form of wild lettuce that does really good where I am in sunny QLD.
This form was originally from Japan where the locals called it gishi-gishi, and it is grown in many parts of Asia as a leafy green.
The leaves are more bitter than your standard supermarket cos or iceberg, and that’s a good thing, I really like it.
It’s like a much softer milder Radicchio or leaf Chicory and it goes great in salads or roughly chopped and added to hot spicy noodle dishes.
Makes a great contrast with simple bland foods like steamed vegetables or tofu and this is one the most common ways it is used in Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan and the Philippines.
Use it to wrap tofu, steam or fry it, then dip in soy sauce, fish sauce or spicy sesame oil.
Simple but very awesome!
Commercially grown crops produce 10-20tonnes of leaves per hectare and the plant itself has lots of beta-carotene, riboflavin, iron, calcium and Vitamin C, much more than the more commonly available supermarket lettuces here in Australia.
Common names include wild lettuce, lechuga de la India, Indian lettuce, milkweed, ku mak, yao mak, ku mak cai, daun panjang, sawi rana, or a whole heap of different local variations on the terms “Goose vegetable” or “Rabbit food”.
It is also very commonly called Lactuca saligna or even Pterocypsela indica.
Like all Lactuca Species, the bitter white sap produced when it nears flowering can have mild painkilling and relaxing narcotic effects if eaten or smoked in large quantities, but I’ve never had that experience with this fella, even after eating heaps.
I believe that like the common supermarket lettuces this has been bred out of this fella and it is no longer a truly wild species where as the Lactuca serriola I sell still is still truly wild and undomesticated.
That fella is nearly inedibly bitter, producing a much thicker sap in much larger quantities.
Very different plants, but all closely related.
This fella, Indian lettuce=Lactuca indica, Supermarket lettuce=Lactuca sativa, Wild Opium lettuce=Lactuca serriola.
This guy is an Asian vegetable or salad ingredient, not a medicinal herb as such.
A great choice too and unlike the common ones this guy has never had a bug issue at my place and it handles the heat very well.
Fast growth too with the first harvest being about ~6weeks from germination.
Remove the leaves starting at the bottom and the tip will keep growing producing new leaves higher up as it grows.
Grown by me and the Mrs organically, no chems, no nasties, no problems!!!
