Sonchus oleraceus
Sonchus oleraceus L.
| Order | Asterales |
|---|---|
| Family | Asteraceae |
| Genus | Sonchus |
2n = 32
Origin : temperate Eurasia,
Mediterranean
wild
| English | "sow thistle" |
|---|---|
| French | "laiteron, laiteron maraîcher" |
- excellent wild salad
- eaten cooked, as spinach
- forage plant: rabbits, sheep, horses
- medicinal
Contents
Description
red-stemmed individual
rosette
flower head
fruiting flower head
.jpg)
- annual herbaceous plant, 30-80 cm tall, with an abundant white latex
- erect stem, sparsely branched, smooth or slightly glandular, angular, hollow
- glabrous alternate simple leaves, runcinate-pinnatifid or pinnatipartite, deeply pinnately lobed, coarsely toothed, winged petiole and soft spines at early growth stages
- cauline leaves embracing, with acuminate auricles, spreading
- glabrous involucre, sometimes flaky at the base
- yellow flower head with ligulate flowers
- fruits: obovate-oblong brownish achenes, very rough, crested with a white pappus
The sow thistle has naturalized all over the world, including in tropical areas. It is a common garden weed.
Popular names
| English | sow thistle, milk thistle, hare’s lettuce |
| French | laiteron ; lastron, brède lastron (La Réunion) |
| German | Gänsedistel |
| Dutch | melkdistel |
| Italian | grespino, crespigno, cicerbita, allattalepre |
| Spanish | cerraja, cardo lechuzo, lechecina |
| Catalan | lletsó |
| Portuguese | serralha, leitaruga ; serralha branca, serralha macia, leita ruga (PROTA) |
| Modern Greek | zokhi, tsokhos |
| Chinese | 苦苣菜 - ku ju cai (Flora of China) |
| Hindi | दूधी - dudhi (Flowers of India) |
| Rajasthani | आकडियो - aakadio (Flowers of India) |
| Manipuri | খোমথোক্পী - khomthokpi (Flowers of India) |
| Nepalese | दुधे काँडा - dudhe Kaandaa, छोटे झार - chhote jhaar (Flowers of India) |
| Filipino | gagatang (igorot) (PROSEA) |
| Indonesian | tempuh wiyang, delgiyu (Javanese), camawak (Sundanese) (PROSEA) |
| Vietnamese | rau diếp dại, nhũ cúc, rau cúc sữa (PROSEA) |
- See the names of Flore populaire d'Eugène Rolland
- See the etymology of Sonchus
Classification
Sonchus oleraceus L. (1753)
Cultivars
History
Sonkhos Dioscoride 315r
Sonchus laevis. Mattioli, 1554, Commentarii, 2, 257
Sturm, 1796. Deutschlands Flora, pl. 49
Flora Batava, 1814
Lindman, 1917-26. Bilder ur Nordens Flora
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Uses
La consommation de cette espèce (ar. : difef ; fr. = laiteron maraîcher) est rapportée en Tunisie par Lemordant et al. (1977), alors que Täckholm (1974) la signale comme utilisée en salade en Egypte. "Consumption of this species is reported in Tunisia by Lemordant et al. (1977), while Täckholm (1974) reports it as used for salads in Egypt."
Répandus partout dans les jardins et les cultures, les laiterons sont les plantes les plus estimées pour la nourriture des lapins. "Widespread around gardens and cultures, sow thisthles are the most estimated plants for feeding rabbits.
Cultivated in the Philippines; mostly use is made of wild-growing plants. The young leaves and shoots are eaten raw, cooked or slightly steamed, also used for fodder and as a medicinal plant.
- Harvested at the rosette stage, sow thistle is an excellent wild salad, used all over Mediterranean areas. Its soft spines are not troublesome. Nevertheless, this usage seems unknown further north in Europe. In Charente (France), for example, it is only harvested as rabbit food.
- At a more advanced stage, it can still be eaten, cooked, as spinach, within pies or as soups.
References
- Chauvet, Michel, 2018. fr:Encyclopédie des plantes alimentaires. Paris, Belin. 880 p. (p. 150)
- Dambourney, Louis-Alexandre, 1786. Recueil de procédés et d'expériences sur les teintures solides que nos végétaux indigènes communiquant aux laines & aux lainages. Paris, De l'imprimerie de Ph.-D. Pierres, premier imprimeur ordinaire du roi. 407 p. See on Pl@ntUse
- Marco, Claude ; Chauvet, Michel ; Molina, James ; Ubaud, Josiane et al., 2017. Les salades sauvages. L'ensalada champanela. 4e éd. revue et corr. Prades-le-Lez, Les Ecologistes de l'Euzière. 192 p. on line at Ecologistes de l'Euzière
Links
- BHL
- Flora of China
- Flora of North America
- Flowers of India
- Grieve's herbal
- GRIN
- IPNI
- Mansfeld
- Moerman, Native American Ethnobotany
- Plant List
- Plants for a future
- PROSEA sur Pl@ntUse
- PROTA sur Pl@ntUse
- Tela Botanica
- Useful Tropical Plants Database
- Wikipedia
- Wiktrop - Adventices tropicales et méditerranéennes
