page_title: Alliaria petiolata
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Alliaria petiolata / Description
caption_attribution_description: Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata). Photo by sannse, Tapeley Park, Instow, North Devon, 14 May 2004.
context_page_description: Alliaria petiolata, or garlic mustard, is a biennial flowering plant in the mustard family. It is native to Europe, western and central Asia, north-western Africa, Morocco, Iberia and the British Isles, north to northern Scandinavia, and east to northern Pakistan and Xinjiang in western China.
  In the first year of growth, plants form clumps of round, slightly wrinkled leaves, that when crushed smell like garlic. The plants flower in spring of the next year, producing cross shaped white flowers in dense clusters. As the flowering stems bloom they elongate into a spike-like shape. When flowering is complete, plants produce upright fruits that release seeds in mid-summer. Plants are often found growing along the margins of hedges, giving rise to the old British folk name of jack-by-the-hedge. Other common names include: garlic mustard, garlic root, hedge garlic, sauce-alone, jack-in-the-bush, penny hedge and poor man's mustard. The genus name Alliaria, "resembling Allium", refers to the garlic-like odour of the crushed foliage.
  All parts of the plant, including the roots, give off a strong odour like garlic.
context_section_description: It is an herbaceous biennial plant growing from a deeply growing, thin, whitish taproot scented like horseradish. In their first years, plants are rosettes 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 often grow from 30–100 cm (12–39 in) tall, rarely to 130 cm (51 in) tall. The leaves are stalked, triangular through heart shaped, 10–15 cm (3.9–5.9 in) long (of which about half being the petiole) and 5–9 cm (2.0–3.5 in) broad, with coarsely toothed margins. The flowers are produced in spring and summer in small clusters. Each small flower has four white petals 4–8 mm (0.2–0.3 in) long and 2–3 mm (0.08–0.12 in) broad, arranged in a cross shape. The fruit is an erect, slender, four-sided capsule 4–5.5 cm (1.6–2.2 in) long, called a silique, green maturing to pale grey brown, containing two rows of small shiny black seeds which are released when a silique splits open. A single plant can produce hundreds of seeds, which often scatter several meters from the parent plant.
  Depending upon conditions, garlic mustard flowers either self-fertilize or are cross-pollinated by a variety of insects. Plants from self-fertilized seeds can be genetically identical to their parent plant, enhancing their abilities to thrive in places where their parental genotype can thrive.
  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 (particularly the genus Ceutorhynchus), 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 (Anthocharis cardamines) can be found feeding on the long green seed-pods from which it can hardly be distinguished.
caption: Close-up of garlic mustard flowers
exif: {}