Wild City Edge Academy: Garlic Mustard

Garlic Mustard

Kingdom: Plantae

Order: Brassicales

Family: Brassicaceae

Genus: Alliaria

Species: A. petiolata

About The Garlic Mustard

Garlic Mustard was first planted is Long Island, New York in 1868 as an edible plant for others to use. It was mostly kept as a potted plant. Its seeds were soon blown away by wind into nearby forests and fields. After that the seeds traveled more over the place, soon to be invasive to nearby states.

Where It Is Native

The Garlic Mustard is native in Europe, Western and Central Asia, And Northwestern Africa.

As An Invasive

Garlic Mustard was introduced in North America as a culinary herb in the 1860’s and is an invasive specie in North America. In 2006, it is listed as a noxious or restricted plant in Alabama, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oregon, Vermont, West Virginia, and Washington. Like a lot of invasive plants, once it is introduced into a new location it begins to spread into undisturbed plant communities. In many areas of its introduction in Eastern North America, it became the dominant understory species in woodlands and floodplain environments, where it is difficult to get rid of it all.

In Our Woods

So far we have not found any Garlic Mustard in our woods

How To Remove Garlic Mustard

The Garlic Mustard is a rather easy plant to pull. The best time to pull this plant is when they have just started flowering, before any of the seeds have been made. Pulling the Garlic Mustard works best when the soil is moist. When you do pull Garlic Mustard out make sure all the roots are pulled out, because if any roots are left in the ground can be resprout and form another Garlic Mustard plant. It is a better idea to put the pulled Garlic Mustard into bags and remove them from that area, because if they are pulled and laid on the soil they may go ahead and help themselves and set more seeds. Whatever you do DO NOT place the Garlic Mustard plants in compost or any other vegetative material, the seeds might remain alive. You can either burn them or throw them in the trash where they will go to a landfill to be buried.

How To Identify The Garlic Mustard

Biennial or winter annual herb that typically grows to about 3 feet tall, but can be anywhere from a few inches to over 6 feet tall depending on conditions
Plants are usually single-stemmed, but may have more stems if they were cut
Small, white 4-petaled flowers appear in early spring and are in clusters at the top of the stem
First year plants are low-growing rosettes with rounded, kidney-shaped leaves, scalloped on the edges
Leaves are not noticeably fuzzy or hairy (unlike most look-alike species)
Upper leaves on mature plants are more triangular, becoming smaller toward the top of the plant, coarsely toothed
Plants often smell like garlic, especially when leaves are crushed
Each plant usually produces one flowering stem. If a plant is cut or stepped on, many stems will form
Roots typically have a characteristic s-shaped bend