Lactuca floridana (L.) Gaertn.

Robust, leafy-stemmed annual or biennial 5–20 dm; lvs mostly petiolate and not sagittate at the base, often hairy along the main veins beneath, otherwise glabrous or nearly so, the blade 8–30 × 2.5–20 cm, from elliptic (or cordate) and merely toothed to evidently pinnatifid; heads numerous in an ample, paniculiform infl, with 11–17(–27) blue (white) fls; invol 9–14 mm in fr; achenes 4–6 mm, narrowed upward, beakless or with a stout beak sometimes a third as long as the body, several-nerved on each face, tending to be thickened on the margins; pappus white; 2n=34. Thickets, woods, and moist, open places; N.Y. to Fla., w. to Minn., Kans., and Tex. June–Sept. (L. villosa, the form with merely toothed lvs)