45 days — 'Black Seed Simpson' is a non-heading, large, upright, compact leaf-type lettuce with light green, wide, curled leaves. It is a very early, dependable, and productive variety, as well as very heat tolerant and slow to bolt.
When it was introduced in the late 19th century, seed companies all quickly added it to their catalogs touting their strain's attributes and benefits. Since it was larger in size, of improved quality, and more productive than the older 'Curled Simpson' variety, it has remained one of the most popular leaf lettuce varieties for over 130 years.
Although other merchant's narratives date it back to 1850, our research has only been able to document it back to the 1880 edition of the Peter Henderson & Company seed catalog who stated that they had offered it for the first time the year prior, 1879. Each packet contains one gram, which is approximately 500 to 600 seeds.