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alliaria officinalis
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JACK BY THE HEDGE
Alliaria officinalis
Family CRUCIFERAE
Known also as Garlic Mustard. It is one of those plentiful hedgerow weeds that are constantly met with.
An annual, it is an erect - growing, freshlooking plant, though its stems have an indination to grovel instead of rise. The leaves are more or less heart-shaped, with rounded teeth at the edges, on long stalks of soft texture and hairy beneath. All through the winter these leaves are very conspicuous and attain a large si ze before the stem begins to rise. It has a strong smell, when bruised, suggestive of garlic.
The flowers are small and white, the four petals arranged crosswise. The seed-pods are about two and a half inches long, slightly curved, the valves being keeled, which gives a four-angled appearance.
In June the caterpillar of the Orange-tip Butterfly may be found feeding up on the pods which they resemble so closely that they are very difficult to distinguish.
It flowers in May and June.
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If the leaves are held up to the light it alliaria officinalis will be found that the veins (but not the reticulations) are pellucid and that the leaf is thickly dotted with pellucid glands. The bright yellow flowers are in cymose clusters officinalis alliaria; with a multitude of stamens, which are more or less joined, in three bundles. The flowers are one to one and a quarter inches in diameter. The calyx and corolla alliaria officinalis are more or less marked with black dots and lines. There are five pointed sepals and five petals which are twice as long.
It is an annual, and alliaria officinalis the straggling downy stems rise branching from the root, attaining a height of one or two feet, with bent joints. The leaves are half round, awl-shaped, very slender, in alliaria officinalis distant pairs, and springing from their axils, give the appearance of whorls. The minute white flowers are gathered into cymes at the ends of the stems, and have footstalks of officinalis alliaria varying lengths, which bring them all to the same level, on the principle of the umbel, but the umbel likeness is not very complete owing to those flowers which have alliaria officinalis set their seeds bending down by the depression of their footstalks. The five sepals are oval. Petals five.
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