Green Salad is a generic term for vegetable with leaves. They belong to the same kingdom (angiosperms) but then differ in terms of order, family, genus and species. One of the best way to classify green leaves is to get them by their family or their genus:
- Lettuce (Genus Lactuca):
Varieties of common type of lettuce green salad falls into 4 categories:
– Looseleaf: green or read-tip leaf
– Romaine or Cos: good source of lutein and zeaxanthin, Leafy Romaine
– Crisphead: Iceberg, Batavian or French Crisp
– Butterhead Lettuce: Butter, Bibb, Boston - Chicory (Genus Chicorium):
– Endive
– Curly endive (Frisee)
– Belgian endive (Witloof Chicory, Chicon)
– Escarole (Endive – Hearty green)
– Puntarelle
– Radicchio
– Dandelion Greens: Dandelion is from the chicory tribe, the genus and species are different. - Brassicas (Genus Brassica):
– Cabbage
– Broccoli
– Collard greens
– Kale
– Cauliflower - Spinach (Genus Spinacia):
– Savoy, Semi-savoy or Flat
– Chard: spinach beet, silverbeet, perpetual beet, swiss chard
– Malabar spinach: Red vine spinach, climbing spinach
– Orache: French spinach
– Callaloo: Egyptian Spinach
– Chinese spinach - Valeriane (Genus Valerianella):
– Mache
– Corn Salad
– Lamb’s Quarter, lettuce - Aragula
– Rocket, Roquette
– Red Rocket
– Mizuna: Close to aragula - Mustard Greens (Dijon’s child)
- Purslane: close to Spinach (Same Order: Caryophyllales, different family: Portulacaceae).
- Sorrel: close to Spinach or Purslane
My Green Salad 