Name This Plant -- Then Pull It Up!

This is an enormous colony of the dreaded garlic mustard, across from north Lake Leelanau between Leland and Northport, not too far north of the Clay Cliffs conservancy trail. Last year it looked to me as if herbicide had been applied to this area; if so, it failed in its purpose. The colony on M-22 looks to be flourishing this spring, and even expanding its territory. I noticed new clumps between this large colony and the drive to the Clay Cliffs parking lot.

In the same family as toothwort (and cabbage, Brussels sprouts, etc.), Alliaria petiolata is yet another member of the Brassicaceae family. “Especially invasive in forests,” says the National Audubon Society Field Guide to Wildflowers,

it can become so abundant as do dominate the ground layer, adversely affecting the native species.The garlic-flavored leaves are edible.

The most effective method I know of for discouraging this plant (and not killing anything else around it that has managed to survive) is to pull it up by the roots. It comes up easily (I pulled garlic mustard with a friend in her woods a couple years in a row, and there is very little there now), and if you want to make garlic mustard pesto with the leaves, go right ahead. Just don’t compost the plants you don’t eat, or they will take over your garden, and you’ll have nothing else!

Leeks vs. Daffodils

The emblem of Wales is the leek, arising from an occasion when a troop of Welsh were able to distinguish each other from a troop of English enemy dressed in similar fashion by wearing leeks. An alternative emblem developed in recent years is the daffodil, used and preferred over the leek by the English government [my emphasis added] as it lacks the overtones of patriotic defiance associated with the leek.

St. David's Day meetings are not boisterous celebrations of democracy and freedom in Wales, but rather the subdued remembrance allowed a captive nation under colonial rule.

You can read more about St. David and Welsh history here. One of my friends in graduate students at the University of Illinois was Annie from Wales. I called her “the girl with the aubergine hair.” You couldn’t help but notice Annie, and I’m sure no one who ever knew her could forget her.

Annie was incensed when an undergraduate in one of the classes she taught objected to her philosophical views, calling her “too liberal.” (What was he thinking?) “I’m not liberal!” Annie informed him hotly. “I’m radical!”

I cannot imagine Annie exchanging leeks for daffodils.