Garlic mustard

Alliaria petiolata

"Alliaria petiolata" is a biennial flowering plant in the Mustard family, Brassicaceae. It is native to Europe, western and central Asia, and northwestern Africa, from Morocco, Iberia and the British Isles, north to northern Scandinavia, and east to northern Pakistan and western China.
Garlic mustard_ Alliaria petiolata Seen in April 2020 in Grootbroek, an area of lakes near our twon, in Belgium. Alliaria petiolata,Belgium,Garlic mustard,Geotagged,Spring

Appearance

It is an herbaceous biennial plant growing from a deeply growing, thin, white taproot that is scented like horseradish. In the first year, plants appear as a rosette of green leaves close to the ground; these rosettes remain green through the winter and develop into mature flowering plants the following spring. Second year plants grow from 30–100 cm tall and rarely to 130 cm. The leaves are stalked, triangular to heart-shaped, 10–15 cm long and 5–9 cm broad, with a coarsely toothed margin. The flowers are produced in spring and summer in button-like clusters. Each small flower has four white petals 4–8 mm long and 2–3 mm broad, arranged in a cross shape. The fruit is an erect, slender, four-sided pod 4–5.5 cm long, called a silique, green maturing pale grey-brown, containing two rows of small shiny black seeds which are released when the pod splits open. A single plant can produce hundreds of seeds, which scatter as much as several meters from the parent plant.
Poor Man's Mustard White flowers with 4 petals clustered at the stem tips. Leaves are toothed and have a garlic odor when crushed. This plant has a biennial life cycle - so, it only lives for two years. During the first year, it just looks like a cluster leaves. In the second year, tall stalks with small, white, terminal flowers grow. They are edible during the second year and taste like garlic. The flowers are delicious in salads, and the seeds can be roasted and ground for use as a spice. Alliaria petiolata,Garlic Mustard,Garlic mustard,Geotagged,Poor Man's Mustard,Spring,United States,hedge garlic,penny hedge

Uses

Garlic mustard is one of the oldest discovered spices to be used in cooking in Europe. Evidence of its use has been found from archeological remains found in the Baltic, dating back to 4100-3750 B.C.E.

The chopped leaves are used for flavoring in salads and sauces such as pesto, and sometimes the flowers and fruit are included as well. These are best when young, and provide a mild flavor of both garlic and mustard. The seeds are sometimes used to season food directly in France. Garlic mustard was once used medicinally as a disinfectant or diuretic, and was sometimes used to heal wounds.

Sixty nine insect herbivores and seven fungi are associated with garlic mustard in Europe. The most important groups of natural enemies associated with garlic mustard were weevils, leaf beetles, butterflies, and moths, including the larvae of some moth species such as the Garden Carpet moth.

The small white flowers have a rather unpleasant aroma which attracts midges and hoverflies, although the flowers usually pollinate themselves. In June the pale green caterpillar of the orange tip butterfly can be found feeding on the long green seed-pods from which it can hardly be distinguished.

In North America, the plant offers no known wildlife benefits and is toxic to larvae of certain rarer butterfly species that lay eggs on the plants, as it is related to native mustards but creates chemicals that they are not adapted to. Native species, including two stem-mining weevils, a stem-mining fly, a leaf-mining fly, a scale insect, two fungi, and aphids were found attacking garlic mustard in North America. However, their attacks were of little consequence to plant performance or reproduction of garlic mustard.

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