Perennial Corn Salad

Hello,
I was given perennial corn salad. I didn't even know that existed before.
Normal corn salad (valerianella locusta) is a very tasty salad that is popular in France.
There is a perennial version of this plant that keeps on growing year after year and spreads.
If the plant likes the place it will form a carpet (i was told) with very few weeds growing.
I am quite excited about this and will try to see if i can establish a good patch of it.
The leaves of my plant were smaller than ordinary corn salad but very tasty.
Also i grew it in very poor soil.

How cold a zone does it overwinter in?  This sounds really great!  Did you get it as seeds or as plants?  Do you know if it comes true by seed?  Thank you.  I need to find this one.

My only experience with corn salad (mache) here in the US in the restaurant industry. And it's all grown hydroponically, rots before your eyes. I always loved the flavor, but it was extremely expensive. I would love to be able to grow some. Going to follow this thread. Thanks.

Do you know what your "perenial cornsalad" actually is? since cornsalad or as I know it lambs lettuce is an annual, and the internet is not comming up with anything either. Stacy, the regular stuff is incredably easy to grow, and happily self seeds, it's winter hardy up here down to -15C or so, but as it seeds itself freely easily becoming a weed it's not really a problem. If you can get the seeds for the wild type, it has smaller leaves but they taste better than the larger commercial varieties (in my opinion)

I don't know how much cold it can handle. I suspect it should produce perennial plants from its seeds.
It looks more like a wild corn salad in that it has smaller leaves but it spreads through new shoots coming up from the rootstock all the time.
My plant has now turned into six or seven.
The guy who gave it to me said it forms quite a dense carpet that suppressed other weeds fairly well (still a bit of weeding needed i should think)
I can send plants to europe, but not to america.
Seeds, if i ever get some, shouldn't be a problem to send to the US

Here is a picture of the plant. As you can see it has divided very well since i started off with one plant and i already gave some of it to someone else.
The leaves are fairly small but they were bigger in spring. It is growing in very poor soil, so it would certainly make bigger leaves in good soil.

A fun project would be to cross it with cultivated mache (corn salad) and select for large-leaved, vigourous, tasty, perennial offspring.

Stacy Witscher wrote:My only experience with corn salad (mache) here in the US in the restaurant industry. And it's all grown hydroponically, rots before your eyes. I always loved the flavor, but it was extremely expensive. I would love to be able to grow some. Going to follow this thread. Thanks.

The commercial one here in NA is not very good or even comparable in my experience. The stuff in Europe would blow your mind!
I haven't had much luck growing any here and I am not sure why. Zone 3 so there isn't a chance to get it through winter here but it seems that I can't figure out when to grow it. It just doesn't come up at all.

Did this corn salad stay perennial? How's the taste? Did you ever figure what the botanical name for it is?

Hey, just wanted to check in and see if this corn salad did indeed grow perennial for you? Thanks for your time! =)

if this is indeed wild corn salad, and not some related species, it is not perennial, it just self seeds really well