tricolour)
Lamb's Lettuce or Cornsalad (Valerianella locusta)
Grey Granite wanted to create another card for her range of Fighting for Sight greetings cards. She decided that heartsease pansies would provide a suitable image so off she went armed with her photographic equipment to seek some out amongst the dunes by Fraserburgh Golf Course.
During the hunt Grey Granite came upon the heartease pansies she wanted and lay down in the sand to photograph them using a macro lens. She spotted a tiny clump of very small pale blue flowers rather like cultivated white alyssum, dwarfed by the pansies and easily overlooked. Grey Granite was very excited by the discovery of this unknown plant. After spending some time in her study happily browsing through her wild flower books Grey Granite was pleased to be able to identify the plant as Lamb's Lettuce or Cornsalad. This is described by Welch as scarce in Aberdeenshire and is the plant from which cultivated edible Lambs Lettuce is descended. The plant is confined to a few coastal localities with light sandy soil. Although the leaves of the wild variety are edible they have little taste and the garden variety which Grey Granite has grown over winter for use in salads, it being very hardy, has even less flavour.
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