Lactuca sativa Seeds | Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce
LATIN NAME: Lactuca sativa
COMMON NAME: Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce
Plant Profile
Black Seeded Simpson is the loose-leaf lettuce that has outlived most of its Victorian rivals, a crinkly, light-green salad herb introduced by Peter Henderson and Company of New York in 1879 and still sown in millions of rows. It makes no head at all, only a ruffled rosette of tender leaves, and that open habit is exactly why it became the beginner’s lettuce: you pick a few leaves and the plant keeps coming.
The leaves are broad, frilled, and a pale yellow-green, carried on a loose, open rosette rather than wrapped into a heart. The texture is soft and juicy, the bite is mild, and the plant bolts faster than a cos when the weather warms, so it is a cool-season crop by nature. The name points to the seed, which is a glossy black, not to the leaf colour.
Cut the stem and the white fluid shows, the lactucarium that gave lettuce its old reputation as a calming food. The effect in a bowl is tiny, but the compound is real, and it is the trait that links the garden lettuce to the bitter daisy-family herbs rather than to a mere watery leaf.
Science & Biotechnology
The lactones sit in the white latex that wells from a torn rib, the same chemistry that marks the cos and the wild Lactuca. In a loose-leaf the rib is thin and the latex is light, so the bitterness is a whisper, and the mild taste is the reason cooks reach for Simpson when they want a soft, non-assertive salad green.
Uses & Benefits
The cultivar was named for its shiny black seed and released in 1879 by the seed house of Peter Henderson, a date that makes it one of the older loose-leaf strains still in trade. It sits in the crispa group of Lactuca sativa, the curled salad branch, and its long life is a mark of how well the mild, fast leaf suited the home garden.
As in every lettuce, the faint bitter note rides on sesquiterpene lactones in the leaf and midrib, with lactucin and its oxalate form lactucin-15-oxalate among the main ones. These give the salad its gentle green edge and, in the latex, the old ‘lettuce opium’ that herbalists dried for a sedative. The load is low in the tender young leaf, which is why Simpson tastes sweet rather than sharp.
Black Seeded Simpson is the classic cut-and-come lettuce: take the outer leaves and the rosette sends more, so a single sowing feeds the kitchen for weeks. It prefers the cool and a little shade, and it is the leaf to sow for a steady supply of baby greens and full-size picks alike.
Cut it young for a tender baby leaf in a mix, or let it size up and harvest the whole loose head at once; either way the flavour stays mild. Because it forms no heart, the whole plant is usable leaf, and the frilled shape makes a pretty plate without any trimming skill.
Grow Simpson beside the cos and the red types so the bowl spans crisp and soft, pale and purple, the loose leaf giving the tender base and the romaine the crunch. The mix also spreads the risk, since the loose-leaf bolts first and the cos holds later, so the garden keeps a salad longer.
Growing from Seed
Sow the fine black seed on the surface of a cool, firm bed and press it in lightly, since deep cover stalls it and light helps it settle. Keep the soil moist and shaded from hot sun, and the small seed stands quickly into a row of tiny rosettes.
Move the seedlings when three true leaves have opened, setting them 20 to 25 cm apart so the loose rosette has room to spread. Early, wide spacing keeps the plant leafy and slows the run to flower, which is the main way to stretch the harvest in warming weather.
Give the rosettes room and cut from the outside, and the row will crop for weeks before it stretches to seed. Water at the base, keep the leaf dry to dodge mildew, and sow a fresh patch as the weather cools so the salad never gaps.
Our Take
Black Seeded Simpson is the lettuce I sow first with children, because the ruffled leaf is forgiving and the plant keeps giving. Sow it cool, cut from the edge, and start another row before this one bolts.
Related reading: Salad Bowl Lettuce seed Lactuca sativa cut and come again, or Red Lettuce seed Lactuca sativa ‘Red Salad Bowl’ for a red leaf in the same mix.
Related Reading
More species in the same orbit as Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce: