Sweet alyssum
Lobularia maritima
Family · Brassicaceae · Harmless
The carpet of small white honey-scented flowers growing on dunes, walls and beds all along the coast. It is native to the Peninsula, despite being in half the gardens in the world.
Dunes and sand · Walls and rocks · Town and roadside · Roadsides and waste ground
Also known assweet alison, seaside lobularia
How to tell it
A low branched cushion covered in clusters of white four-petalled flowers, with a sweet honey scent you catch in passing. Narrow grey leaves covered in flattened hairs. Round flat pods.
What it is confused with
Shepherd's purse
Capsella bursa-pastoris
Both white crucifers and edible. Sweet alyssum is a grey scented cushion of dry ground; shepherd's purse is a single stem with heart-shaped pods.
What it is for
Leaves and flowers are eaten in salad, mildly peppery, as in the whole family. It is one of the best coastal plants for insects, because it flowers almost all year.
Traditionally used as food. This is not permission to eat it.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
No approved contributions for this entry yet.
Nothing appears here without a person reading it first. Contributions do not replace the entry or its warnings: until a botanist confirms, what is written above stands.