The Lettuce and the Mesclun - A Little History and Some Growing Instructions Lettuce appears to have been domesticated from a weedy species of wild lettuce that produced lettuce leaves on the top of a tall stem. Evidence which supports this theory comes from Egyptian tomb paintings dating back 4500 years which show bundles of stem lettuce being transported. The first written accounts describing lettuce are from Herodotus, who wrote that lettuce appeared on the royal tables in Persia in 550 BC. The Greeks, including Hippocrates, ascribed medicinal properties to lettuce, and the Romans wrote extensively about it including Pliny who described nine varieties grown in Roman agriculture. It was probably the Romans who introduced lettuce into northern and western Europe. The Romans popularized a tall cylindrical form
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