Wild Mustard

Weed Identification Guide
Types of Weeds
Types of Flowers

Many plants in the mustard family (Brassocaceae) get called weeds, with wild mustard, perhaps the best known.

A medium sized plant, it grows aggressively in fields and other unmanaged areas, including lawns, across most of North America.

A shallow roots makes hand pulling the plant an effective control method.

Wild Radishes, edible root vegetables in the mustard family also grow aggressively, sometimes taking over a landscape.

Effective long term control means removal of their entire, long taproot.

California has a unique hybrid wild radish problem. In the course of a short one hundred years, a hybridized radish caused its two parent radishes to go extinct.

Dame's Rocket (Hesperis matronalis), another non-native mustard plant sits unevenly between the flower and weed category.

The bright pink flowers explain the plant's original popularity as an ornamental, and today there are still instances of its use.

Since its early introduction to American soil, the plant has spread throughout the northern half of the United States, where it competes with native plants for space.

In the wild it thrives in multiple locations, including woodland areas and roadsides.

The Forest Service recommends, "Locating and removing plants immediately before seed sets is the best way to prevent the spread of dame's rocket. Be sure to check the contents of "wildflower" seed mixes for this species, and do not plant those that carry it."

Hairy Bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta), a member of the Mustard family, (Brassicaceae), was introduced from Europe.

Today it calls many lawns home and it os often it is more recognized by its long, thin stems rather than its flowers. The flowers are tiny and the picture shows them enlarged by at least a factor of three.

Consider Hairy Bittercress a nuisance rather than an invasive species. Pull it up by their shallow roots.

Wild Mustard