Lactuca virosa
Wild Lettuce
This magick herb was referred to as "Titan's Blood" in ancient Greek manuscripts and many consider it, like regular lettuce, to be a Moon plant on account of its generally watery nature and white sap. If you have encountered this plant, you know that it does not have the wateriness of its domesticated cousin, and its chemical relationship to other strongly Saturn plants like henbane indicates a Saturn association, especially when you consider the insignificant flowers. Consider it as an incense aid for divination, especially when working with darker deities.

This herb contains the tropane hyoscyamine, much as the nightshades do, but Lactucarium, an Eclectic preparation from this herb, is a sedating bitter that contains no hyoscyamine. Its dried sap looks, tastes, and smells similar to opium (more Moon here) and so has been used to adulterate opium in the past, which probably partially accounts for its name. This plant is also known as Strong-scented Lettuce, Lettuce Opium, Laitue vireuse, and Acrid Lettuce.

How to grow wild lettuce: Do not cover seeds - just press them into moist soil and water to germinate in 7-14 days at 70F. I actually threw out a pack of old seeds of this plant onto a mulched area and two plants came up, but I don't suggest this as a planting method. Keeping the soil covered with plastic will help hold in moisture, but watch for fungus in that case. This is a biennial, which means in the first year it will make a rosette of leaves, and in the second year the flower stalk will shoot up to 6 ft. and produce seeds (but if you're lucky, it will make seeds the first year). This plant likes rich, moist soil and reseeds so readily that it is considered a weed in many areas. General growing info

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Uses in Witchcraft & Magick:

Divination
Moon & Saturn Herb

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