Brassicaceae X - please help me ID it!

Update 19/07/10: The mystery is solved!

Just the other day I was wondering if I'd ever find out what this plant was. Then yesterday I got an email from my son's good friend's father who is a botanist. Why had I never thought to ask him before? Especially as it turns out he is actually one of New Zealand's Brassicaceae experts!

So, thank you Phil Garnock-Jones for this information:

Your mystery Brassica is Brassica fruticulosa (Mediterranean mustard); within that species it belongs to subsp. mauritanica, so it comes from North Africa. It's common around Wellington as far as Palmerston North. The wrinkly seed pods and the stalked upper leaves help to identify it.

I will write a new entry for it soon. (And more info about it is here. Thanks Phil for the link.)

Also - thanks - and a HUGE apology to Mike who wrote a comment here a few months ago (see below) that I never saw until today! He had solved the mystery already -  'twiggy turnip' is a common name for Brassica fruticulosa.


Here's a plant that looks a lot like wild turnip - and for the longest time I thought it WAS wild turnip ... until a visit to a helpful botanist and forager put me right. (Thanks Julia!)

You can read about the real wild turnip below. But what's this one? It's clearly a close relative in the Brassicaceae family. (Also commonly called the mustard family or the cabbage family.)

It's in flower all round Wellington at the moment. The flowers are slightly paler than wild turnip flowers, but are otherwise very similar. Like wild turnip, the flowers open above the bud, rather than below it. (Some Brassicaceae do the opposite.)

The leaves have quite a different shape to wild turnip leaves, with more rounded, curvy edges, and a smoother feel. They also don't grow so large as wild turnip, and when they go to seed, the seedpods are noticeably smaller.

What is this mystery Brassicaceae? If anyone can help, I'll be grateful.

Wild turnip (Brassica rapa ssp sylvestris)

A member of the Brassicaceae family - which gives us many of our cultivated veges and condiments - broccoli, cabbage, kale, bok choi, radishes, turnips, cress, horseradish, wasabi, mustard,  and on the list goes!

Recognise this family (also called the mustard family or the cabbage family) by its four-petalled flowers with six stamens. They have flower heads that look like little broccoli heads when budding.

Most wild Brassicaceae are edible - but avoid gathering them from places that may have been heavily fertilised or be subject to run-off, as the plant absorbs and retains nitrates - toxic in high doses.

Family relationships
Wild turnip is just one variety - or subspecies- of Brassica rapa. Cultivated turnips are of this same species - and so is bok choy.

Ways to eat wild turnip
(The information here is the same as for wild radish, as they are so similar.) 


Edible parts of wild turnip include the leaves (especially the younger, less bitter ones), the flowers, the flower buds, the roots, and the seeds.

Use the leaves just like bok choy leaves.  They lose volume very quickly when cooked though, so you only need to fry or steam them for a few seconds. They lose a lot of their distinctive taste and hotness as they cook too, so that's another reason to keep it to the minimum.

Some young, small roots may be tender enough to cook and eat - give it a go. The larger ones will almost certainly be quite fibrous. They go well in stock though - just like their cultivated counterparts.

You can cook the flower buds like broccoli - but again only for the briefest time.

The flowers are decorative in salad.

To harvest the seeds, gather the seed pods after flowering and spead them out on a plate to dry in the sun. (It should be sunny by the time the pods appear!) As the pods dry, they'll split and release the seeds, which you can then easily separate from the pods and pour into a bowl or jar to store. Use them just like mustard seeds.

(To make mustard paste pound them up with a little liquid. Use vinegar if you want the paste to keep.)

(Thanks to Julia Stace Brooke-White for clearing up some of my confusion over what is and isn't wild turnip.)


Wild turnip links:
Plants for a Future database
Google Images

Wild radish (Raphanus raphanistrum ssp.)

A member of the Brassicaceae family - which gives us many of our cultivated veges and condiments - broccoli, cabbage, kale, bok choi, radishes, turnips, cress, horseradish, wasabi, mustard, and on the list goes!

Recognise this family by its four-petalled flowers with six stamens. They generally have flower heads that look like little broccoli heads when budding.

Most wild Brassicaceae are edible - but avoid gathering them from places that may have been heavily fertilised or be subject to run-off, as the leaves may be full of nitrates - toxic in high doses.

Family relationships
Wild radish is a different species from that which our cultivated radishes come from (Raphanus sativus), but it is in the same genus, and you can see the similarities in the leaves. (As well as taste them!)


Ways to eat wild radish
 (The information here is the same as for wild turnip, as they are so similar.) 

Edible parts of wild turnip include the leaves (especially the younger, less bitter ones), the flowers, the flower buds, the roots, and the seeds.

Use the leaves just like bok choy leaves.  They lose volume very quickly when cooked though, so you only need to fry or steam them for a few seconds. They lose a lot of their distinctive taste and hotness as they cook too, so that's another reason to keep it to the minimum.

Some young, small roots may be tender enough to cook and eat - give it a go. The larger ones will almost certainly be quite fibrous. They go well in stock though - just like their cultivated counterparts.

You can cook the flower buds like broccoli - but again only for the briefest time.

The flowers are decorative in salad.

To harvest the seeds, gather the seed pods after flowering and spead them out on a plate to dry in the sun. (It should be sunny by the time the pods appear!) As the pods dry, they'll split and release the seeds, which you can then easily separate from the pods and pour into a bowl or jar to store. Use them just like mustard seeds.

(To make mustard paste pound them up with a little liquid. Use vinegar if you want the paste to keep.)
Edible parts of this plant's family are generally the younger leaves, the flower buds, and the roots. Some have seeds that can be made into mustard.


Wild radish links:
Plants for a Future database
Google Images

Shepherd's purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris)

A particularly cute member of the Brassicaceae family - very small with little heart-shaped seed pods.

Its root is edible, as are its first spring leaves.

It has all sorts of traditional herbal uses.

Shepherd's purse links:
Plants for a Future database
Google Images