Species of the Month

Garlic mustard is one of the most common springtime flowers throughout the UK. It is a biennial, which means it takes two years to grow, flower and set seed. A key feature of this plant is that the leaves smell of garlic when crushed. 

In the first year, garlic mustard has a low rosette of broad, kidney shaped leaves. From April to June the following year, the stems are topped by clusters of small four-petalled white flowers. The stems themselves have hairless, heart shaped, toothed leaves. 

The flowers are followed by upwardly curved seed pods, which burst when ripe and are dispersed by the wind. 

Garlic mustard can reach up to 1m in height.

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Garlic mustard flowers are a good source of nectar for hoverflies and midges, but the flowers can also be self-fertile.  

Garlic mustard supports many insects including caterpillars of the orange-tip butterfly, green-veined white, Bath white and garden carpet moth.   

• The name, garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) is botanically misleading, because it is not related to the true garlics (Allium) at all but is a member of the Brassica family, which includes mustards and cabbages. The name originates from the smell and flavour of the leaves.  
• Garlic mustard is also known as Jack-by-the-hedge, garlic root, hedge garlic, sauce-alone, Jack-in-the-bush, penny hedge and poor man’s mustard.  
• Due to its edible and flavoursome leaves, garlic mustard has been used in cooking in Europe for over 6000 years. The young leaves can be added to savoury dishes or eaten raw, and the flowers can be used in salads. Even the seed pods can be fried or crushed to add to mustard, while the roots taste like horseradish.  
• It was so well liked as a culinary ingredient, that early European settlers introduced it to North America, where it's now considered to be an invasive species.  
• The leaves of garlic mustard can be used to make a yellow dye.
• Garlic mustard has historically been used to treat a variety of ailments – from coughs and colds, to rheumatism, bruises, sores and even as a cure for colic and kidney stones! 

Garlic mustard prefers moist, shady soils, and dislikes being in the sun all day, which is why it is a common plant in hedgerows and woodland. It will also grow on waste and disturbed ground and is often found in rural gardens. 

If you have a garden, leave a patch of garlic mustard to grow as it a good caterpillar foodplant and an early source of nectar. Garlic mustard is very easy to grow from seed in autumn, or you can buy young plants from online wildflower providers in early spring . 

Please don’t use herbicides or pesticides in the garden as these can be harmful to wildlife.

Add your first sighting of garlic mustard in flower to Natures Calendar and be part of this long running phenology citizen science project. The list of species you can record has been carefully selected by scientists to help us understand how wildlife is affected by weather and climate change. You can also enter the first sighting of the orange tip and green -veined white butterflies.