Wild Lettuce

Sow indoors anytime from early spring, or outdoors once the soil has warmed up in late spring. Alternatively, sow in late summer and overwinter in pots before planting out in the spring. Either way, sow the seeds on the surface and press into the soil with a very thin covering of soil or compost. Keep moist until germination, which normally takes a week or two.

Pot up and plant out as you would with normal lettuce. In most cases a spacing of around 30cm between plants should be fine, but you may want to increase that a bit if the soil is rich in nutrients, producing larger leaves. The leaves are edible and can be added to a salad but be warned – they are much more bitter than regular lettuce leaves and may not be appreciated by all. If it is the milky sap you are growing it for, leave it to grow in year 1 and harvest it when it has started to send up its flowering spikes in year 2.

Wild Lettuce is used for any nervous agitation leading to insomnia and restlessness. Its been recommended by The Eclectic Physicians, the 19th Century American Herbalists, for restless lungs – making it useful for coughs; restless digestion – indicating it for colicy pain; and restless womb – pointing to use in painful menstruation; and restless muscles – easing rheumatic aches.

It contains sesiquiterpene lactones, including the very bitter lactucin and lactupicrin – also found in dandelions – along with flavonoids like quercetin. The plant-protecting latex was traditionally extracted into a black-resin leading to it being called ‘opium lettuce’, even though it is without the powerful analgesic and psychoactive properties of opium poppies. Herbalists called this dried latex ‘lactucarium’ that is easy to store and administer. See below for how to make it…

You can harvest in the first year but get a greater yield in the second when it exudes plenty of sticky white latex- and this is what you want to capture.
For drying, cut at the base and hang the stems upside down in a well ventilated and warm room. When dry, discard the fatter more fibrous stems and cut into smaller pieces. Or you can cut when fresh and dry on racks – but cut bigger pieces to preserve the latex content. Store in an airtight container for later use.
For a tea (a rather bitter one) add 1-2 tsp of cut herb to a cup of freshly boiled water and leave to infuse for 15 minutes. It tastes and works better with chamomile and lavender.
For a tincture: Use freshly-dried herb at 1:5@45% or use fresh herb with higher alcohol.
For a syrup with wild lettuce use at about 10% of the blend.

To make Lactucarium, you will need to make a plan.
Get 100g Dry Wild Lettuce, and 1Litre 100% alcohol (you may need an alcohol licence in some countries to obtain this).
Decoct the 100g Wild Lettuce in 1000ml 50:50 water and ethanol (500ml water and 500ml 100% alcohol) over an electric cooker (no open flames) in a well ventilated room. (This is a 1:10 extraction)
Carefully strain this into a clean bowl after about 1 hour when 200ml remains.
Keep the marc (the wet wild lettuce) to one side.
Now wash-rinse the wild lettuce marc with 500ml more of the alcohol by trickling the alcohol over the marc allowing it to percolate through into a bowl below.
Add 500ml water and the remaining 200ml decoction to this and re-simmer. (We now have a 1:20 extraction).
Keep simmering until 100ml remains. Take great care not to burn it.
Then very carefully, either evaporate off in a bain-marie, or dehydrate in the oven – not above 100C- or in the sun.
This should condense down to around 10g leaving you with a 10:1 Lactucarium extract. This means that 0.1g of this is equal to 1g wild lettuce.
Use by redissolving a pinhead amount in a teaspoon of 25% alcohol or take sub-lingually.
(Recipe adapted from King’s American Dispensatory 1898)