Hedge Mustard - Sisymbrium officinale

Description

Medium to tall plant with spreading branches. Lower leaves deeply pinnately lobed, with a large terminal lobe. Flowers pale yellow, small 3 mm. Fruits short 10 to 20 mm closely pressed to the stem.

Identification difficulty
ID guidance

Seed-pods long, without beak, splitting into 2 valves with one row of seeds in each valve; appressed to stem (i.e folded up to lie alongside stem)

Habitat

Waste places, roadsides, occasionally on arable land.

When to see it

May to September.

Life History

Annual or biennial.

UK Status

Fairly common throughout much of Britain though scarcer in central and northern Scotland.

VC55 Status

Common in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 474 of the 617 tetrads.

In the current Checklist (Jeeves, 2011) it is listed as Alien (archaeophyte), frequent

Leicestershire & Rutland Map

MAP KEY:

Yellow squares = NBN records (all known data)
Coloured circles = NatureSpot records: 2020+ | 2015-2019 | pre-2015

UK Map

Species profile

Common names
Hedge Mustard
Species group:
Wildflowers
Kingdom:
Plantae
Order:
Brassicales
Family:
Brassicaceae
Records on NatureSpot:
240
First record:
12/05/2006 (Calow, Graham)
Last record:
10/08/2023 (Smith, Peter)

Total records by month

% of records within its species group

10km squares with records

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