LAST
YEAR was the first time we’d tried growing American Land-cress and
I’d certainly grow it again. From a two-foot square of one
of the raised beds (left) we got plenty of peppery-tasting leaves for
sandwiches and salads. The plants have now started flowering but, rather
than throw them straight on the compost heap, I’d like to pick
the leaves, which are still fresh-looking and peppery-tasting, and make
them into the Land-cress version of watercress soup.
Are they really crucifers
(mustard family) as they at first appear? I felt that some of the flowers
had a figwort kind of look to them but,
no, that’s just the way these particular flowers were growing;
they have four petals in the cross-shaped arrangement that gives
the crucifers their name. With a hand lens I could see one stigma surrounded
by six stamens each of which had a slipper-shaped anther (pollen-bearing
organ) at the end of it.
There was no striking banding on this bumble-bee. As it
paused on the lip of a Land-cress flower it carefully unfurled its tongue
which
about the same proportion to its head an body as an elephant’s
trunk is to the elephant.