Bastard cabbage
Mustard-like yellow-flowered weed of fields and roadsides; gives honey bees moderate nectar and pollen in spring.
- Nectar
- Medium
- Pollen
- Medium
- Flowering
- JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
- Height
- 0.3-1 m
- Life cycle
- Annual
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Bastard cabbage is an annual herb, very similar to mustard, that grows in cereal fields, on fallow land and along roads and railways in the Mediterranean and Anatolia. It bears pale yellow, four-petalled flowers in long racemes; its fruits are small two-segmented pods whose upper part has a wrinkled surface, hence the species name rugosum. Like other members of the cabbage family it has exposed nectaries, and honey bees visit it for nectar and pollen.
Flowering
It flowers from April to June; on irrigated or late-tilled land scattered flowers may appear all summer.
Honey and pollen
It has no honey of its own; it makes a small contribution to mixed spring honeys and, like mustard-type plants, can cause early crystallisation of the honey.
Note for the beekeeper
Being a field weed, it is quite likely to be sprayed. In Australia and the Americas it is a problem as an invasive weed.