Another Plant ID Please

[Toadflax]

Can anybody please help identify this small ground cover plant. I've searched through two good flower books but not yet found it. The plant is spreading all around the bottom end of my garden. It only stands 1 or 2 inches from the ground with tiny 4-petalled white flowers. The flower petals are only 3 or 4 mm long (note the use of imperial and metric units!) with the bigger leaves in the first picture being 7-8mm long.

Thanks very much.



Geoff

 

[JonnyP]

Looks like cress, probably bitter cress, try a nibble on a leaf to confirm, should taste like cress.......

 

[leon-b]

not sure thats a good idea, you know just incase its poisinous
leon

 

[Toadflax]

Thanks - I've got a couple of good plant books so I can check out bittercress now I've got a lead to follow. The problem I've found with many wild flower books is that they can confirm what you think you know, but trying to find an unknown plant can take hours to flog through all the pictures and descriptions.


Geoff

 

[madrussian]

See if it looks like this:

http://www.british-wild-flowers.co.uk/B-Flowers/Bittercress, Large.htm

 

[Toadflax]

My wild flower guides make me think that it is almost certainly hairy bittercress.

 

[bushtank]

Looks like wavey bitter cress (cardamine flexuosa) to me which is very simular
to hairy bitter cress. The wavey bitter cress has six stamens rather than four like the hairy bitter cress.

 

[Geuf]

that's 'waterkers' in dutch. translated it says: watercherry. wich is a completely idiotic translation. anyway, maybe if you google that you'll find the latin name wich can translate it back to english. what the hell, I'll look it up.

here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorippa

so all above people are right. it is cress. I believe all cress is edible. but I'm no expert. just had a short workshop about edible plants last weekend wich included cress. hope it helps.

 

[xylaria]

Looks like wavey bitter cress (cardamine flexuosa) to me which is very simular
to hairy bitter cress. The wavey bitter cress has six stamens rather than four like the hairy bitter cress.

:notworthy YOU CAN TELL THE DIFFERANCE WOAW!! :Wow: YOU'RE GOOD.

do you know if they taste any differant. Mind you if you are down to counting stamens the differance between them is literally academic.

 

[Toadflax]

After Thomas' posting I looked again at my flowers book, and it does indeed describe the number of stamens. Must go and count them tonight!

Whatever it is, looks like it is some sort of bittercress so I must try it and see what it tastes like.


Geoff

 

[stuart f]

Hi all, i thought this might be of interest. I'm currently working my way through this book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Botany-Day-...471937?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173655755&sr=1-22 and can say that its helping tenfold regarding plant ID.

Also you can get more info about the book and how it all works here http://www.hollowtop.com/ .

All in all i really like the way Thomas j. Elpel writes,he has a wonderful way of making everything easy to learn without bogging you down with jargon.

Anyway i hope this is of some help to some.

 

[loz.]

not sure thats a good idea, you know just incase its poisinous
leon

Send me some - I'll test it !

 

[xylaria]

Send me some - I'll test it !

Are you related to my dad or something?

Or is just something that blokes from Dublin do?

Have you ever tried laburnum seeds? my dad really likes them, he says they tastes like fresh peas. Not tried them myself I prefer to live etc.

 

[Toadflax]

I do believe that we are looking at Wavy Bittercress. Close examination of the flowers is showing more than 4 stamens - certainly 5 or 6 stamens (need to get myself a magnifying glass for these tiny flowers) and the stalk definitely looks zig-zagged like the picture in my old Collins Guide to Wild Flowers.

And amazingly, it really does taste like cress. This is the first (of not very many) 'wild' leaves that I have enjoyed the taste of. Raw dandelion is too bitter for me to enjoy eating it, young hawthorn leaves also seemed pretty bitter. I've got a patch of chickweed starting up, so that's probably the next one on my menu.

So thanks for all the help...

...now, does this look like Ground Elder - and is there anything that Ground Elder might be confused with? It's spread over quite a patch of my garden and we've never let it get into flower so I can't do a positive ID on it but I think that a fitting control method would be to eat it!

Geoff

 

[xylaria]

IMHO Dandilion is best served up with something tastless like bistort. You shred up the dandilion really fine, and mix with much larger amounts of big tasteless leaves. It is where a receipe out classes the sum of its parts.

GROUND ELDER IS CARROT FAMILY DO NOT EAT UNLESS UTTERLY SURE OF WHAT YOU ARE EATING.

Not even my Dad eats carrot family without a clear ID.

 

[tommy the cat]

Geoff It looks like ground elder in my book but I am no expert and with no flowers makes it hard to be positive. But then what do I know? D

 

[paulcd]

Thoughts...is this a compound or a single leaf? Can't tell from the photo.
does it have a stem with a groove = poss. ground elder etc or a square stem (in cross section) = poss. a mint.

 

[bushtank]

:notworthy YOU CAN TELL THE DIFFERANCE WOAW!! :Wow: YOU'RE GOOD.

do you know if they taste any differant. Mind you if you are down to counting stamens the differance between them is literally academic.

Oh yes im good and sad I also love shrooms

 

[xylaria]

could be:
ground elder
greater burnet saxifrage
angelica
greater water-parsnip
lesser water-parsnip
fools watercress
corn parsley
stone parsley
valerian
Or if you are really unlucky Hemlock water dropwort or water dropdead as I prefer to call it.

IMHO the leaves look a little small for ground elder, and a bit too toothy on the leaves. Unless someone posts something that is really diffinative for that one spieces I would not advise that you take advice off the internet for this paticular plant .

Consuming the wrong member of the carrot family can kill quickly enough not to give you time to ring an ambulance. I would stick to eating death caps, at least then you have two weeks to find a new liver.

Rant over

 

[Butchd]

Looks quite small for ground elder, but that might be just because it's very young!