Garlic mustard
A white-flowered crucifer of shady woodland edges that smells of garlic when crushed; a minor spring source for honey bees, invasive in North America.
- Nectar
- Low
- Pollen
- Low
- Flowering
- JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
- Height
- 0.3-1 m
- Life cycle
- Biennial
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Garlic mustard is a biennial crucifer of woodland edges, hedge bottoms and shady gardens. Its small white flowers give little nectar and little pollen; it matters more to small wild bees, flies and species such as the orange-tip butterfly than to honey bees. For honey bees it is only a minor source contributing to the spring mix.
Flowering
It flowers for 4-6 weeks from April to June. In the first year it overwinters as a leaf rosette; in the second it flowers, sets seed and then dies.
Honey and pollen
There is no honey under its own name. The crushed plant smells of garlic; there is no information that this smell passes into the honey.
Note for the beekeeper
It is native in Europe and Turkey; in North America, however, it is a serious invader that carpets the forest floor and suppresses native plants. In Europe its young leaves are eaten as a wild vegetable.