Al Schneider's Rocky Mountains Plant Descriptions

Dame's Rocket
Hesperis matronalis
Mustard family (Brassicaceae)

This plant is a showy alien introduced from Eurasia in colonial times as an ornamental. It escaped cultivation, commonly through planting of wildflower seed mixes, and now is found through much of the region. Many states consider Dame's Rocket an invasive species.


©2011 Tony Frates

Description

Erect or short-lived , 2-3' tall. Flowers pink-purple (occasionally white), 4-petaled with 4 . Flowers cluster in elongated arising from axils of upper leaves. , , and sharply . Leaves decrease in size upward on the stem. Lower leaves becoming stalkless higher on plant. Stems and leaves long-hairy. are long thin pods, narrowing between seeds.

Field Marks

Pink-purple 4-petaled flowers in showy atop long-hairy stems and leaves.

© Al Schneider

A perennial plant lives and blooms for many years.

Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom.

Like the teeth on a saw, leaves and other surfaces can have toothed edges.

fruit -- any seed-bearing structure in flowering plants. It is formed from the ovary after flowering.

stalk -- The supporting structure of an organ. Examples of stalks are stem, peduncle, petiole, ...

leaves alternate along the main stem and are attached singly.

biennial -- a plant which lives for two years, producing a basal rosette of leaves the first year and a full plant, flower, and seed the second year followed by the death of the entire plant at the end of the second year.

A raceme is an unbranched, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along its axis.

lanceolate -- Lance-shaped. Long, wider in the middle.