| Cardamine hirsuta | ||||||||||||||
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| Cardamine hirsuta L. | ||||||||||||||
Hairy bittercress, Lamb's Cress, Land Cress, and Hoary Bitter Cress, Cardamine hirsuta, is a winter annual plant native to Europe and Asia, but also present in North America as an invasive weed. The plant is a member of the mustard family (Brassicaceae), and is edible as a bitter herb. It flowers from quite early in the Spring until the Autumn. The small white flowers are borne in a corymb on wiry green stems, soon followed by the seeds and often continuing to flower as the first seeds ripen. The seed are borne in siliquae which, as with many Brassica species, will burst explosively, often when touched, sending the seeds flying far from the parent plant. Seeds germinate in the Autumn, and the plants are green throughout the winter months.
Hairy bittercress can be very invasive and often arises when seeds are introduced unintentionally in the soil of plants that have been brought home from a nursery or garden centre. This plant grows best in consistently damp, recently disturbed soil. These are conditions that are prevalent in nursery or garden centre-grown plants, and hairy bittercress hitches a ride in those plants.
Other common or country names include bittercress, land-cress and lamb's cress.