Lesser Swine Cress

didymus: twinned, referring to the pair of mericarps which comprise the fruit

Annual or biennial herb with much-branched, prostrate or ascending, pubescent stems up to 50 cm long, strong-smelling when crushed. Lower leaves pinnately lobed with the lobes pinnatifid; cauline leaves sessile with the lobes entire, all leaves sparsely pubescent to subhairless. Flowers very small, whitish, in dense leaf-opposed racemes, elongating up to c. 6 cm. Petals 0 or c.0.5 mm, shorter than the sepals. Stamens 2(-5). Fruit c. 2.5 mm wide, constricted in the middle into 2 subspherical, 1 seeded mericarps. Seeds ellipsoid, flattened, orange-brown.

Local

A cosmopolitan weed, possibly of American origin