Petey rambles on and on and even recites a poem!
I suspect that to many nursery folks propagating the plants they will grow is the best part of nursery work. Gathering native seed in the wild is fun because, in order to germinate that seed you to think about the ecology of the plant; when do the seed fall, how long do they sit around, do they need a nick in the seed coat, do they need heat, do they need cold, do they need both? What a blast!
Lettuce has been cultivated for thousands of years and there is no longer the wild version of Lactuca sativa. Well duh, sativa does mean...
I guess to truly be a fandango I would need a partner and maybe some castanets, but the loose rock fandango can get pretty...
It was Linnaeus that created the name Mimosa from the Greek: mimos for mime and the suffix osa for resembling. As to the plant...