Wild Lettuce grows as a tall, erect biennial, reaching up to 8 feet high.

Stems are leafy, smooth, light green or reddish green, sometimes have purple streaks, contain a milky juice and are unbranched below the floral array.

Leaves vary considerably, from entire to toothed, to pinnately divided and have a narrow unstalked base or a clasping base. Larger leaves tend to have deep pinnate lobes, smaller upper leaves maybe entire with a sessile base. The leaf edges are not spiny, teeth, when they are present, are widely spaced and the underside of the midrib vein will have fine short hair but no prickles.

Floral Array: Flowers appear in a loosely branched panicle that is long (tall) and cone shaped and contains many flower heads. It is late flowering in Summer and the inflorescence will have buds, flowers and seed heads at the same time.

The flowers, resembling dandelions, are small (under 3/8 inch) with 15 to 20+ yellowish bisexual ray florets, disc florets are lacking (a few plants have bluish rays but that is the exception); flower heads have involucres campanulate to cylindric in shape, longer than wide. The flower stalk has small green bracts (calyculi) which reduce in size and grade into the phyllaries which are in several series around the flower head with the outer ones shorter than the linear inner ones. These reflex when the head is in fruit. The receptacle of the flower is considered 'epaleate' (that is, lacking paleae - which are small bracts that in other species subtend each ray floret). The filaments and anthers of the five stamens of each ray floret are yellow and are tightly appressed around the style which has a split tip. Each flower rapidly absorbs moisture and fades away the same day it opens - said to be 'deliquescent'.

Seeds are brown, oblong-oval, dry cypselae (seeds in composite plants that resemble an achene), with one noticeable nerve line on the side (although they may be up to 3 on some), a long thin beak, and are transported by the wind via a tuft of white bristles (pappus).

Habitat: Wild Lettuce grows from a deep taproot. It tolerates poorer soils but does best in fertile loam and full sun, while some shade is tolerated as are moist to dry conditions.

Names: The genus Lactuca is applied to the lettuce family and comes from the Latin lac, for the milky juice of the stem and root. The species canadensis means 'of Canada', the original type location. The author name for the plant classification, from 1753, - 'L.' refers to Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), Swedish botanist and the developer of the binomial nomenclature of modern taxonomy.

Comparisons: A similar plant is Prickly Lettuce, Lactuca serriola, but there the leaves have prickly edges and spines on the underside of the midrib. Blooming earlier, but still around at the time Wild Lettuce blooms are the Sow Thistles. The flowers of of Spiny Sow Thistle, Sonchus asper, somewhat resemble Wild Lettuce but are slightly wider and the leaves also are prickly. The most similar plant is Tall Blue Lettuce, L. biennis, but there the florets are mostly bluish or cream-colored and the leaves a darker shade.