Lens-Podded Hoary Cress
Cardaria chalepensis (L.) Hand.-Maz.
Brassicaceae (Mustard Family)
▲ new shoots emerging in spring
▲flowering plants
▲ flowers and fruit
▲▼ stem and leaves
▲ dried plants, after flowering
▲ dried fruit
▲ creeping roots
Lens-Podded Hoary Cress, Lens-Pod Whitetop:
· a creeping perennial weed that produces creeping roots
· produces colonies of mostly unbranched stems
· leaves are lanceolate, with toothed margins; base of leaves wrap partially around stem
· produces clusters of terminal racemes with showy white flowers in mid to late spring
· silique is a small, flattened, semi-inflated, lens-shaped capsule
· has irritating sap, if livestock graze it
· can be very difficult to control, due to lack of susceptibility to many herbicides and its underground structures
· more common north or west of here, but could potentially become established here
· two other similar creeping perennial species—hoary cress, and hairy whitetop also more common further west—distinguished only by silique shapes