Valerianella locusta, (L.) Laterrade

Tutin, T. G., Heywood, V. H., Burges, N. A., Moore, D. M., Valentine, D. H., Walters, S. M. & Webb, D. A., 1976, Flora Europaea. Volume 4. Plantaginaceae to Compositae (and Rubiaceae), Cambridge University Press : 50

10. V. locusta (L.) Laterrade , Fl. Bordel, ed. 2, 93 (1821)

( V. olitoria (L.) Pollich ).

Up to 40 cm. Lower cauline leaves broadly spathulate to ovate, obtuse, entire to sinuate; middle and upper ovate-spathulate to lanceolate, entire to remotely sinuate-dentate. Bracts oblong-spathulate, obtuse, green, with scarious auricles. Fruits 1-5-2-5 mm, in dense, hemispherical, terminal clusters and usually also solitary in the lower dichotomies, falling separately, lenticular, as wide as or wider than long, glabrous to minutely puberulent; fertile loculus with a thickened, spongy outer wall as thick as the cavity of the loculus; sterile loculi as large as the fertile, separated by a shallow, longitudinal groove; pericarp smooth or transversely rugose. Calyx reduced to a minute tooth above each loculus. 2л = 16. Most ofEurope, but rarer in the north. All except Az BI?Cr Fa Is Rs (N) Sb.

Variable mainly in size and shape of fruit and thickening of pericarp. Plants from Portugal with ovoid-oblong, less strongly flattened achenes and the pericarp with spongy thickening forming 8 more or less prominent ribs have been called V. lusitanica Pau ex Font Quer , Trab. Mus. Ci. Nat. Barcelona (Sér. Bot.) 5: 39 (1924); their status is uncertain.

Larger plants with obtusely 3-angled fruit c. 4 mm and with prominent spongy thickening on the sterile loculi ( var. oleracea (Schlecht.) Breistr. ), as well as normal forms of the species, are cultivated for salad in various parts of Europe.