XCIV.— HEDGE MUSTARD. 
Sisymbrium officinale Scopoli. 
I T has been truly said of this plant, as also of the Mealy Guelder-Rose {Viburnum 
hantana Linn6), that it seems to have a special affinity for dust. The Guelder- 
Rose, it is true, is covered with stellate hairs which not only capture the dust but 
themselves impart a dusty look to the shrub : the Hedge Mustard, on the other 
hand, has only simple unbranched hairs, but these are numerous, fine, and mostly 
reflexed, sloping, that is, down the stem. The plant is, moreover, a lower-growing 
species, frequenting the very edges of the highway. In spite, however, of this sordid 
aspect, the plant is not without some beauty, more especially in the outline of its 
root-leaves, whilst in former times it seems to have been in considerable popular 
repute as a remedial agent, as, indeed, were several of its congeners, now alike 
consigned to oblivion, so far as any medical value is concerned. 
The name Sisymbrium is from the Greek aicrvfji^pLou, sisumbrion, which is 
employed by Theophrastus and Dioscorides apparently for more than one plant in no 
way connected with the genus now so called. The Water-Mint {Mentha aquatica 
Linne) and the Cat-Mint {Nepeta Cataria Linne) are supposed to have been so 
named ; but nothing is known as to the etymology of the name itself. Linnaeus used 
it as a generic name, including under it the London Rocket {Sisymbrium Irio), so 
called because it sprang up in quantity in London after the Great Fire of 1666, and 
the Flixweed ( 5 . Sophia), which was known as “Wisdom of Surgeons” from its 
repute in healing wounds, its English name referring to its use in dysentery. He, 
however, referred our present species to the genus Erysimum, so that the name 
Sisymbrium officinale dates from the second edition of the “ Flora Carniolica ” of 
J. A. Scopoli (1732-88), published in 1772. 
As at present constituted, the genus comprises some fifty or more species, natives 
of the North Temperate Zone, with three or four British representatives. They are 
annual or biennial herbaceous plants, covered, as we have said, with unbranched hairs. 
They have a rosette of radical leaves differing in form from those on the stem, which 
are scattered and frequently auricled at the base ; and a raceme of flowers, generally 
small and yellow. The sepals are nearly equal, ascending, slightly coloured, and 
deciduous ; and the petals are undivided and have claws nearly as long as the sepals. 
The style is very short, and the stigma discoid and persistent. The pods are borne 
erect in long clusters and are slender, terete, or angled, with convex valves with 
three longitudinal veins to each of them. The seeds are numerous, small, smooth, 
and so arranged alternately on either side of the septum as to form a single row. 
Though compressed, they have no distinct margin, and the funicle is slender. The 
radicle is incumbent, i.e. it rests against the flat back of one of the cotyledons. 
Our common Hedge Mustard ( 5 . officinale Scopoli) is a tap-rooted annual of a 
dull or yellowish shade of green, generally rough, hairy, or downy all over. Its stem 
