Mouse-ear Cress

Arabadopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh.

Brassicaceae  (Mustard Family)

▲basal rosettes

▲▼ flowering plants

▲ flowers and fruit

▲flowering plant

 

Mouse-ear Cress: (not in Weeds of the Midwest, Weeds of the Great Plains, nor Weeds of the Northeast)

·         small, winter annual weed with greenish-purple basal rosette of hairy, lance-shaped leaves, often with some teeth on the margins

·         flowering stems grows 3-2” tall

·         inflorescence of terminal racemes on upright branches with tiny white, four-petalled flowers

·         seed pods are slender, flattened but often rounded on the bottom side, somewhat curved without a long  pointed tip; usually reddish purple to dark green about 0.125-1” long

·         common in cultivated crops, warm-season turf, non-crop areas

·         similar to hairy spring whitlow grass, but mouse-ear cress has longer, slender fruit, and spring whitlow grass has oval, flattened fruit, and raised bumps on the leaves where the hairs attach