Ontario
Weeds: Common peppergrass
Table of Contents
- Name
- Other Names
- Family
- General Description
- Stems and Roots
- Leaves
- Flowers and Fruit
- Habitat
- Similar Species
- Related Links
Name: Common pepper-grass, Lepidium
densiflorum Schrad.,
Other Names: Green-flowered pepper-grass,
Pepperweed, lépidie densiflore, passerage, passerage densiflore
Family: Mustard Family (Cruciferae)
General Description: Annual or
winter annual, reproducing only by seed.
Photos and Pictures
Common peppergrass. A. Root. B. Stem with 4 racemes of seedpods.
C. Seedling, top and sideviews. D. Young plant.
Stems & Roots: 10-60cm (4-24in.)
high, usually very much-branched in the upper part and sometimes towards
the base as well, densely covered with very short hair.
Leaves: Rosette leaves with a definite
stalk, deeply lobed or divided into separate segments or merely sharply
toothed; lower stem leaves alternate (1 per node), smaller and less
lobed than the basal ones; upper stem leaves very narrow and either
shallowly toothed or without teeth.
Flowers & Fruit: Flowers individually
very small with the white petals extremely short or absent altogether,
densely packed in light green clusters at the tips of the branches;
seedpods very dense (9 to 15 pods per lcm, 2/5in., of stem), flattened
nearly round, 2-3mm (1/12-1/8in.) across with very narrow short narrow
short wings towards the tip, a notch between them and a tiny stigma
in that notch; seeds 2 per pod, 1 on each side of the septum (membranous
partition); septum very narrow, only as wide as the fruit is thick;
seeds bright reddish-yellow. Flowers from June to August. When mature,
the plant becomes brittle and easily breaks off, rolling and scattering
its seed.
Habitat: Common pepper-grass occurs
throughout Ontario, being a very common weed in cultivated fields,
farmyards, gardens, roadsides and waste areas.
Similar Species: It is distinguished from
similar plants by its very numerous, small, rounded but flat, 2-seeded
pods with almost no wings around the margins, and the flowers with
tiny white petals shorter than the sepals or missing altogether.
Related Links
... on general Weed
topics
... on weed identification, order OMAFRA Publication 505: Ontario Weeds
... on weed control, order OMAFRA Publication 75: Guide To Weed Control
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