AKA
Garlic Mustard, Hedge Garlic, Jack In The Hedge, Sauce Alone, Poor Man’s Mustard
Where: Shaded hedgerows, field and especially woodland edges.
Throughout UK except Scotland
What: Leaf, Seeds
When: Leaf: spring and occasionally autumn. Seeds: August/September
This
is an excellent, and thankfully common, plant with bags of flavour. Growing on
a single, thick (up to 2cm), and hairless dark green stem, the plant can reach
up to 1m in height. It produces numerous bright or yellowish green leaves –
pointed in the upper part of the plant, and more rounded or kidney-shaped with
rounded lobes and growing in a rosette in the lower part. The leaves are 3-7cm
long, with deep veins running over the surface and with a sharply rounded
toothed edge. The whole looks not to dissimilar to the Nettle (Urtica dioica) but the surface
is completely hairless, and crucially, the leaves smell subtly of garlic when
crushed. Interestingly, the plant is a biennial, and so if the autumn is warm
and good, then a second crop of leaves may appear in September or October.
The
delicate white flowers, made up of 4 petals and measuring just 7mm across,
arrive April to June in small clusters at the top of the plant.
The
seeds occur in summer in thin, four-sided, upright pods, each measuring 5cm and
maturing to a greyish brown colour, and containing two rows of little black
seeds 2.5mm long. The seeds can be crushed with oil to make a very nice wild
mustard, or can be used as a flavouring for cooking.
Taste:
both sets of leaves are good to eat, but the upper, pointier, versions are the
better, I think. Tasting of garlic and mild mustard, but not overpoweringly so,
they are excellent in a salad, or as a green. Try them in an omelette or cook
with them, perhaps laid over a fish. I have made a rather good soup with the
leaves, lentils, tomato and stilton.
Jack By The Hedge in early June.
The Flowers in early June
The leaves in early June
