garlic mustard
Alliaria petiolata
It produces allelopathic chemicals that kill the underground mycorrhizal fungi that native trees depend on for nutrient absorption.
- Scientific name
- Alliaria petiolata
- Taxonomy
- Plantae › Tracheophyta › Magnoliopsida › Brassicales › Brassicaceae › Alliaria
- IUCN Red List status
- Least Concern
- Population trend
- increasing
- Biome
- forest
- Habitat
- Deciduous forests, woodland edges, disturbed areas, and floodplains.
- Diet
- Photosynthetic (Sunlight, Water, CO2)
- Range
- Europe, Western Asia, Central Asia, North America, North Africa
- Size
- 30 to 100 cm in height
- Lifespan
- 2 years
- Active
- diurnal
- Threats
- Habitat management and hand-pulling by conservationists.
- Safe to approach?
- Harmless and edible for humans. If encountered in North America, it is a highly invasive species. To help, pull the entire plant including the root before it seeds, bag it, and dispose of it. Safe to handle without gloves unless you have specific plant allergies.
Alliaria petiolata is a biennial flowering plant in the Mustard family, Brassicaceae. It is native to Europe, western and central Asia, and northwestern Africa, from Morocco, Iberia and the British Isles, north to northern Scandinavia, and east to northern Pakistan and western China (Xinjiang).
Photo: Douglas Goldman, CC-BY-SA, via iNaturalist
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