Some Local Farm Weeds

Erysimum cheiranthoides, Treacle-mustard.  Hayes Street Farm, 17 December 2013

Treacle-Mustard is another plant from Hayes Street Farm.  It is a well-known agricultural weed and it used to be common on waste ground in London, but is now much less so, perhaps because there are fewer loads of earth-covered potatoes and so on being trekked into the town from the surrounding countryside.  It keeps flowering into winter.

Galinsoga quadriradiata, Shaggy-soldier.   Hayes Street Farm, 1 December 2014.

Shaggy-Soldier is uncommon enough to be worth recording.  Again, this is in one of the ploughed fields on Hayes Street Farm and is flowering well into winter.  It has a close relation known as Gallant-Soldier, a common name derived directly from the scientific one, which has spread as an escapee from Kew Gardens.  The plant shown here is Shaggy because of its hairy flower stem. 

Thlaspi arvense, Field Penny-cress.  Hayes Street Farm, 5 December 2014.

Lastly for this post, the seed pods of another agricultural weed from the same farm.  This pod is about 1.5 cm across, and it is easy to see how its common name came about.  This was also still in flower in December, but the flowers are insignificant and this seed pod is much more showy.