I'm trying to get rid of hairy/wavy bittercress in my garden, while encouraging lady smock. The trouble is, when not in flower, they are very similar!

So far I've concluded that the bittercress have longer hairs on their leaves, the leaflets on the stem leaves of ladysmock are narrow and untoothed, whereas the bittercress leaflets are toothed, and that ladysmock stems are round whereas the bittercress stems are distinctly ridged.

Is this about right? Are there other differences I haven't spotted?

On Tue, 10 May 2011 13:42:35 +0000, kay
wrote:


I'm trying to get rid of hairy/wavy bittercress in my garden, while
encouraging lady smock. The trouble is, when not in flower, they are
very similar!

So far I've concluded that the bittercress have longer hairs on their
leaves, the leaflets on the stem leaves of ladysmock are narrow and
untoothed, whereas the bittercress leaflets are toothed, and that
ladysmock stems are round whereas the bittercress stems are distinctly
ridged.

Is this about right? Are there other differences I haven't spotted?

In my experience lady's smock has a much larger flower, which is a
pale pinky-mauve, variable. Hairy bitter cress has pure white, much
smaller flowers. Try Googling for pictures and you will see.

Pam in Bristol

thank you for trying to help, but as I said in my post, I am trying to distinguish them when they're not in flower.