Description :

• Herbs, rarely subshrubs; latex abundant
• Leaves alternate or often rosulate, entire or frequently dentate-pinnatisect to lobed, sometimes spinulose
• Capitula ligulate; solitary or cymose to corymbose-paniculate, rarely in spike-like or racemose synflorescences
• Involucral bracts in several rows or frequently in 2 distinct unequal rows, rarely in single row; often herbaceous, sometimes scarious-margined
• Receptacle mostly epaleate and naked or rarely paleate
• All florets bisexual, ligulate (i.e. strap-shaped with 5 apical lobes), mostly yellow or often violet, blue, pink, purple or white, rarely orange-red, sometimes with pilose tube
• Anthers calcarate and caudate; apical appendage elongate and obtuse-rounded; endothecial tissue radial; filaments smooth
• Style slender, mostly with rather long and slender style branches, evenly pilose with long or short hairs on shaft and along branches; hairs acute
• Cypselas terete to ellipsoid-fusiform to obovoid-obconical, sometimes compressed or flattened, frequently ribbed or angular, sometimes scabrid-muricate or tuberculate, mostly glabrous or sparsely pubescent, often with long beak
• Pappus mostly of scabrid-barbellate bristles, more rarely of plumose bristles, sometimes with outer row of hairs or with intermixed hairs, rarely of minute scales, sometimes 0

Nomenclature:

• Lactuceae
  • Cassini: 151 (1819)
  • Pope: 189 (1992)
  • Bremer: 175 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Genera 98, mainly northern hemisphere and especially southern Europe, North Africa, SW and central Asia, western North America, rarely in tropical and southern Africa, tropical Asia, South America, Australia and New Zealand
• Southern Africa : Genera 13, species 51, mostly weeds

References:

• BREMER, K. 1994. Asteraceae , cladistics & classification . Timber Press, Portland, Oregon
• CASSINI, A.H.G. DE. 1819. In Journal de physique, de chimie, d'histoire naturelle et des artes 88
• HILLIARD, O.M. 1977. Compositae in Natal . University of Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg
• POPE, G.V. 1992. 97. Compositae . Flora zambesiaca 6,1

Resources:

• Key to Asteraceae tribes
• Key to Lactuceae genera

• Lactuceae genera: