NEN Gallery

Garlic Mustard is a common flower of hedgerows, shady wood margins and by walls. It is the only mustard to give off the strong smell of garlic, but it is not rleated to garlic. It was also knows as poor man's mustard and jack-by-the-hedge. It can be made into a sauce and used as a condiment. The aroma of the small white flowers attracts midges and hoverflies although the flowers are usually self pollinating. Its toothed leaves are hairy on the underside and the lower leaves are heart shaped, the upper ones triangular (20-120cm). It flowers April - June and produces long cylindrical seed pods. Picture taken May 20th 2006 near Cople, Bedforshire. For close up pictures of the flowers of Garlic Mustard see April's plant diary.