Edible Uses and Identification of Beaked Corn Salad (Valerianella radiata)

By Matthew Hunter

   In the early spring, around the months of March and April, you’ll find in the moist open fields of the South a tasty wild green with a smooth texture like butterhead lettuce. It’s called corn salad.

   In this article we’re going to look at how to identify corn salad so you can add it to your yearly repertoire of edible spring greens!

A mature corn salad plant. Note the moist habitat.

Where Corn Salad Got Its Name

   Before we begin, a bit of etymology is in order so you aren’t left wondering how this tasty little plant got such a strange name…

   Have read in the King James Bible where the disciples were walking through a corn field plucking ears of corn and wondered, “Wait a second, I thought corn was a New World crop… What was doing in Israel in the first century?”

   The reason that it's written that way is because in the Old English, the word “corn” used to refer to any type of grain, not just maize.

   When settlers arrived in the New World and saw Native Americans growing maize, they called it “Indian corn”, which just meant “Indian grain”. But the name stuck. Now, hundreds of years later, we use the word corn only to refer to maize and nothing else.

   The way corn salad got its name was from the fact that in Europe it was often found growing wild in grain fields. It was harvested during the winter and early spring, and eventually came into cultivation. The European corn salad is also commonly known as mâche or lamb’s lettuce.

   Scientifically, the European corn salad is known as Valerianella locusta(you may also see it listed as V.olitoria, which is the same plant). It’s been grown in the U.S. for at least a couple hundred years, and is now naturalized in the wild throughout much of the East.

   In this article we’ll be looking at a slightly different species, the beaked corn salad(Valerianella radiata), which is native to the United States. Beaked corn salad is named after the sharpened point or “beak” that is present on the tiny seeds. It looks very similar to European corn salad, and is used the exact same way.

A young beaked corn salad plant.

Identification and Range

   Beaked corn salad is an early spring annual of moist fields and open areas. It has a relatively short life cycle, sprouting in February in my area(north Louisiana), flowering around mid-March, and then lasting until about late-April. In more northern areas it will be ready throughout the month of April, then flower from around May to June.

   Corn salad has “spoon shaped” leaves when it’s young. The leaves are oppositely arranged and have toothless margins at first, becoming toothed and less rounded as the leaves move up the stem on mature plants. Mature leaves are also clasping, meaning that they are stemless and directly attached to the stalk.

Note how the leaf shape changes as the plant matures. Young leaves are spoon shaped and toothless, but mature leaves coming off of the stalk become toothed near the base.

Stem leaves are "clasping", which means they attach directly to the stalk.

   One of the most distinct identification features in the younger plants is the fine line of hairs that cover the very edge of the leaf. In botany we call this “ciliate” margins. Other than this distinct line of hairs on the margins, the leaves are completely hairless.

Note the ciliate leaf margins present on younger corn salad plants, and sometimes disappearing with age.

   As corn salad matures it produces clusters of small, 5-petaled white flowers. One distinct feature of the plants is that its flower clusters tend to have a squarish or rectangular appearance.

   The branching pattern of mature corn salad plants is also rather distinct. Each stem forks into 2, giving the plant a unique symmetrical appearance.

Young corn salad plants with immature flower buds.

Note how corn salad stems always fork into two. This gives a plant a somewhat symettrical appearance, which can be seen in the picture below.

Note the symmetrical branching and somewhat squarish or rectangular shape of the flower clusters.

Closeup of the 5-petaled white flowers of corn salad. Each flower has 3 stamens.

Beaked corn salad can be found from central Texas, north to Missouri, and east to the Atlantic.

Edible Uses

   Corn salad leaves are edible raw and make a great addition to salads, sandwiches, and pizza! Both the young and mature leaves have a great flavor. It’s one of my favorite wild vegetables, with a texture very similar to butterhead lettuce.

Corn salad leaves at the perfect stage for harvesting.

Note how the young leaves of corn salad are "spoon-shaped", arranged oppositely(directly across from one another), and have a symmetrical appearance.

Ecology Connections

   Numerous pollinator species visit the flowers of beaked corn salad including bees, butterflies, wasps, and flies. Charlies Robertson, in his 1929 book Flowers and Insects, observed 24 different insect species visiting the flowers over an eight day period. Both deer and bobwhite quail eat the leaves of beaked corn salad.

The flowers of corn salad are visited by numerous pollinators.