Leaf vegetable
plant leaves eaten as a vegetable
Leaf vegetables, also called leafy greens, vegetable greens, or simply greens, are plant leaves eaten as a vegetable. Those eaten raw in a salad can be called salad greens, whereas leaf vegetables eaten cooked can be called pot herbs.
Nearly 1,000 species of plants with edible leaves are known. Leaf vegetables most often come from short-lived herbaceous plants, such as lettuce and spinach, but also come from some woody plants. The leaves of many fodder crops (e.g. alfalfa, clover, and most grasses) are also edible by humans, but usually only as famine or processed food.
Leaf vegetables contain many typical plant nutrients, but being photosynthetic tissues, their vitamin K levels are particularly notable. Accordingly, users of vitamin K antagonist medications like warfarin must limit their consumption of leaf vegetables.
Overview
Leaf vegetables are plant leaves eaten as a vegetable, sometimes accompanied by their petioles and shoots, if tender. Leaf vegetables eaten raw in a salad can be called salad greens, whereas leaf vegetables eaten cooked can be called pot herbs.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Leaf vegetable” as plant leaves eaten as a vegetable. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as plant leaves eaten as a vegetable. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q20134. The Library of Congress control number is sh85057263. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
A general summary may omit uncertainty, sample limits or methodological disagreement that is explicit in the technical record. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Check terminology, classification and the date of the cited evidence. Scientific names and technical consensus can change while older records retain historical value.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Leaf vegetable” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.