Collard is a group of loose-leafed cultivars of Brassica oleracea, the same species as many common vegetables including cabbage and broccoli.

[4] Collard is generally described as part of the Acephala (kale) cultivar group,[6][7] but is also classified as the variety B. oleracea var.

[8] In the Appalachian region, cabbage collards, characterized by yellow-green leaves and a partially heading structure are more popular than the dark-green non-heading types in the coastal South.

Another species of the sting worm, Belonolaimus longicaudatus, is a pest of collards in Georgia and North Carolina (Robbins and Barker, 1973).

[11] The false root knot nematode Nacobbus aberrans has a wide host range of up to 84 species including many weeds.

On Brassicas it has been reported in several states, including Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Montana, South Dakota, and Kansas (Manzanilla-López et al., 2002).

Some collard cultivars exhibit resistance to bacterial leaf blight incited by Pseudomonas cannabina pv.

In Congo, Tanzania and Kenya (East Africa), thinly sliced collard greens are the main accompaniments of a popular dish known as sima or ugali (made with maize flour).

Collards have been cultivated in Europe for thousands of years with references to the Greeks and Romans back to the 1st century CE.

[17] In Montenegro, Dalmatia and Herzegovina, collard greens, locally known as raštika or raštan, were traditionally one of the staple vegetables.

[10] During the time of slavery in the U.S., collards were one of the most common plants grown in kitchen gardens and were used to supplement the rations provided by plantation owners.

For example, jazz composer and pianist, Thelonious Monk, sported a collard leaf in his lapel to represent his African-American heritage.

Novelist and poet Alice Walker used collards to reference the intersection of African-American heritage and black women.

[23] Many explorers in the late nineteenth century have written about the pervasiveness of collards in Southern cooking particularly among black Americans.

[24] In 1883, a writer commented on the fact that there is no word or dish more popular among poorer whites and blacks than collard greens.

[25] In Portuguese and Brazilian cuisine, collard greens (or couve) are a common accompaniment to fish and meat dishes.

For this broth, the leaves are sliced into strips, 2–3 millimetres (1⁄16–1⁄8 inch) wide (sometimes by a grocer or market vendor using a special hand-cranked slicer) and added to the other ingredients 15 minutes before it is served.

A common dish eaten with rice is haak rus, a soup of whole collard leaves cooked simply with water, oil, salt, green chilies and spices.

In the novel Gone With the Wind, hungry protagonist Scarlett O'Hara wistfully remembers a pre-Civil War meal that included "collards swimming richly in pot liquor iridescent with grease.

"[34] In Flannery O'Connor's short story A Stroke of Good Fortune, the main character is an unhappy working-class woman who reluctantly cooks collard greens for her brother, which she finds rustic.