This is a 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 (rarely to 130 cm) tall. The leaves are stalked, triangular to heart-shaped, 10–15 cm long (of which about half being the petiole) 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 to 5.5 cm long,[3]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.

In Europe as many as 69 species of insects and seven species of fungus utilize Garlic Mustard as a food plant, including the larvae of some butterfly species.

The chopped leaves can be used for flavouring 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 flavour of both garlic and mustard. The seeds are sometimes used to season food directly in France.

(source: Wikipedia)

This is a common and extremely adaptable plant that can either exist as an annual or biennial, flowering in its second year. Although a small plant, barely more than 10 cm high in its initial leafy rosette form, its roots may extend into the soil as far as 90cm.

The rosette of deeply divided, toothed or feathery leaves produces one or more upright flowering stems with an in conspicuous cluster of tiny flowers at its tip. This stem has elongated pointed leaves (lanceolate) that clasp the stem directly.

There is no seasonality to the flowering and the plant can be found blooming at any month of the year providing conditions are suitable. As the flowers wither they develop a heart-shaped seed capsule and the flower stalk elongates. When the fruit capsules (each compartment bearing up to 12 seeds) are ripe, any disturbance, for example rain drops hitting them, can cause an explosive movement that flings the capsules far from the parent plant.

Each plant can produce up to 4 generations in one year and each plant produces up to 64,000 seeds. In addition, the seeds can survive up to 30 years in the soil before germinating. This long 'soil seed bank' together with short germination time makes it a particularly successful and tenacious species.

An interesting feature is the sticky mucilage produced by the seed coats that contains digestive enzymes. It is thought maybe this enables tiny living things in the soil to be digested as the plant germinates, so increasing the availability of nutrients for the young seedling.

This is an annual plant with bluish rosette leaves, narrowing towards the stem, and long pointed stem leaves, 1-3.5 cm long with a heart-shaped base, clasping the stem and enfolding it completely.

The flower cluster is tight in the young plant, loosening as the plant matures and the heart-shaped fruit capsules develop along the lengthening stem. Petals are inconspicuous, 2-3mm long with 4 reddish sepals, half the petal length with distinctly white edging. The capsules can be seen emerging from the flower before the petals fall.

When the fruits are ripe they are dish-shaped and falling raindrops force them downwards - a mechanism that causes the capsule to open. With the rapid flick of upward stem recovery, the smooth seeds, 2-4 in number, are shot away from the parent plant.

An inconspicuous, annual, early blooming plant.

These are tiny flowers but in early spring they give a white sprinkled appearance to the dry, open areas where they can grow in masses. In sunshine they open up, hungrily seeking the sun, particularly evident on the south-facing sides of small hillocks. In humid weather and at night, the flowers close and become hardly visible.

On closer inspection, clusters of tiny flowers, each with 4 deeply notched petals can be seen carried on relatively long slender stems, each stem arising from a tight cluster of small hairy leaves, often reddish in colour. The hairs are simple or '3-5 spoked' with radial extensions that gives the leaf and lower stem a matted appearance and help to maintain a layer of moist air around its surface, reducing water loss - an important adaptation to life in dry conditions.

The rounded fruits are dry capsules containing up to 35 tiny brown seeds.

This is a common annual plant growing up each spring from seed and dying overwinter.

There are many species in this family with similar flowers but the leaves often help to distinguish them, also the shape of the fruits.

Wallflower Mustard has simple leaves, elongated and weakly toothed if at all, arranged alternately along the stem. The lower leaves have a short stalk (petiole), the upper ones are sessile (no stalk).

The stems are ridged and covered with short, branched, flat-lying hairs but these are only visible with a magnifying glass. There may be several stems arising from the base of the plant but each stem has few if any branches.

The fruits are elongated, upright pods, square in diameter, up to 3cm long and thicker than the stalks that carry them. The pods lower down the cluster develop at the same time as younger flower buds are opening at the tip.

This is an annual or biennial plant with a basal rosette of dentate leaves, up to 8 cm in length and an erect stem with backward facing hairs that can reach approximately a meter in height. The erect stems have smaller, stalked and toothed leaves arranged alternately along their length.

The main stem branches part way up with a cluster of bright yellow flowers at the tip of each branch. As flowering progresses, the flower stems elongate to about 30cm in length and the long pods (siliques) project laterally on slender stalks giving a bristly appearance. The pods can reach about 3.5cm long and contain many tiny seeds.

The plant is allelopathic, which means it produces chemicals that inhibit the growth of ther plants, so giving itself a competetive advantage.

This plant is a native of central and eastern Europe, common in the Vienna area and parts of eastern Europe but scattered or rare in other places.

This is an annual to biennial plant with a leafy appearance.

The flower stems emerge from near the base and elongate during flowering, the tip continuing to produce a flowering cluster while the seed pods develop along the stem behind.

These stems can reach a height of 60 cm at the end of the blooming period.

The lobed leaves remain massed near ground level.

The seed pods reach a length of 2-4cm with a disc-shaped tip and a short stalk, 4-10mm long.

This is a common wayside plant with an erect and angular branching growth and distinctively arching stems with elongated, pointed seed pods that lie flat against the stem giving almost a braided appearance. It is an annual or biennial plant reproducing only from seed.

Near the base of the plant there is a rosette of deeply dissected serrated leaves with a large terminal section, triangular with widely-projecting basal lobes. Leaves growing further up the stem are smaller and narrower.

The flowers are tiny and inconspicuous, the petals 2-4mm long and irregular in appearance. The flower stem elongates behind the flowering tip and the felted seed pods, pointed at each end and closely pressed against it, are more noticeable than the flowers themselves.

The plant has a covering of short hairs that seem to catch dust easily.

As with many other members of the cabbage family, this plant is an important food plant for caterpillars of several butterfly species.

Biennial plant with rosette of stalked leaves with large, blunt or heart-shaped terminal lobes and several smaller basal lobes. There are no flowers in the first year and only during the second year do the flowering stems develop with smaller, lobed or toothed, sessile leaves along their length and a cluster of flowers and later seed pods at the tip.

The ribbed and hairless flowering stem elongates during the flowering season, reaching a height of 90cm. Upright seed pods, 1.5-3cm long develop along the lower parts of the flower stems, carried on thin stalks, 4-6mm long.

The flowers continue to bloom in bright, dense clusters at the tips of the stems throughout the blooming season. They have nectar-producing discs in the centre that attract flies and small beetles that aid pollination.

The leaves have a bitter flavour, ('cresso' in old German means bitter) and have been used in the past as a salad vegetable.

This plant is a native of Eurasia but has spread to many other temperate regions of the world and is considered a noxious weed. It spreads by means of abundant seeds produced in upright cylindrical pods, up to 4 cms in length. The plants may spread so effectively and colonise a field to such an extent that it takes on a purple haze and the yield of a crop of grain may be seriously reduced. If the plant is growing in meadowland grazed by dairy cattle, the milk may acquire a strange taste and odour. Since the plant is an annual it can be controlled by preventing it from setting seed.