Lettuce

Lemon.

Biron. A Lemon.

Longaville. Stuck with Cloves.

Love's Labour's Lost, act v, sc. 2 (654).

See Orange and Cloves.

Iago. If we will plant Nettles or sow Lettuce. (See Hyssop.)

Othello, act i, sc. 3 (324).

This excellent vegetable with its Latin name probably came to us from the Romans.

"Letuce of lac derivyed is perchaunce;
For milk it hath or yeveth abundaunce."

Palladius on Husbandrie, ii, 216 (15th cent.) E. E. Text Soc.

It was cultivated by the Anglo-Saxons, who showed their knowledge of its narcotic qualities by giving it the name of Sleepwort; it is mentioned by Spenser as "cold Lettuce" ("Muiopotmos"). And in Shakespeare's time the sorts cultivated were very similar to, and probably as good as, ours.