Lactuca hirsutaMuhl. ex Nutt.

hairy lettuce

WFO wfo-0000059748 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Lactuca hirsuta, photographed by John Kees
fig. a John Kees, CC0 1.0 / 2022-05-31 / obs. 202325087
Lactuca hirsuta, photographed by John Kees
fig. b John Kees, CC0 1.0 / obs. 194904436
Lactuca hirsuta, photographed by Alan Weakley
fig. c Alan Weakley, CC0 1.0 / obs. 186142007
Lactuca hirsuta, photographed by John Kees
fig. d John Kees, CC0 1.0 / obs. 149577653
Lactuca hirsuta, photographed by Kathleen Houlahan Chayer
fig. e Kathleen Houlahan Chayer, CC0 1.0 / obs. 141909124
Lactuca hirsuta, photographed by John Kees
fig. f John Kees, CC0 1.0 / obs. 141584714
Lactuca hirsuta, photographed by Asher P Higgins
fig. g Asher P Higgins, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 130196744
Lactuca hirsuta, photographed by Nathan Aaron
fig. h Nathan Aaron, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 82942407

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
3035763
Filed as
Lactuca hirsuta Muhl. ex Nutt.
Det. by
not recorded on this sheet
Collected
not recorded
Origin
not recorded
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 32 botanical countries

Regions where Lactuca hirsuta is native: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Nova Scotia, Ohio, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Prince Edward I., Québec, Rhode I., South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia AlabamaArkansasConnecticutGeorgiaIllinoisIndianaKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMississippiMissouriNew HampshireNew JerseyNew YorkNorth CarolinaNova ScotiaOhioOntarioPennsylvaniaPrince Edward I.QuébecSouth CarolinaTennesseeTexasVermontVirginiaWest Virginia District of ColumbiaRhode I.
Native distribution of Lactuca hirsuta, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alabama ALA NORTHERN AMERICA
Arkansas ARK
Connecticut CNT
District of Columbia WDC
Georgia GEO
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Kentucky KTY
Louisiana LOU
Maine MAI
Maryland MRY
Massachusetts MAS
Michigan MIC
Mississippi MSI
Missouri MSO
New Hampshire NWH
New Jersey NWJ
New York NWY
North Carolina NCA
Nova Scotia NSC
Ohio OHI
Ontario ONT
Pennsylvania PEN
Prince Edward I. PEI
Québec QUE
Rhode I. RHO
South Carolina SCA
Tennessee TEN
Texas TEX
Vermont VER
Virginia VRG
West Virginia WVA

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 239 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -12.7 °C -1.2 °C 6.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 25.0 °C 31.1 °C 33.8 °C
Annual rainfall 955 mm 1,254 mm 1,521 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 178 mm 254 mm 314 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 239 research-grade observations of Lactuca hirsuta that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 5 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Lactuca hirsuta f. hirsuta
  • Lactuca hirsuta var. albiflora (Torr. & A.Gray) Shinners
  • Lactuca hirsuta var. hirsuta
  • Lactuca villosa Muhl. ex Torr. & A.Gray
  • Lactuca villosa Torr. & A.Gray

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.