This common little hairless annual is frequently found on bare, damp, bare ground, and can be identified from its perennial cousin, Cardamine flexuosa, by the number of stamens which are 4 in Cardamine hirsuta and 6 in Cardamine flexuosa. It has tiny little white, 4-petalled flowers (4-6mm ) and a basal rosette of pinnate leaves. Its seed pods are long, curved and erect and reach higher than the flowers, the plant growing to 30cm high. It blooms from March to August, belongs to the family Brassicaceae, and is a native plant
I first identified this little plant in Dalkey, Co Dublin in 1977 and photographed it in 2000.
If you are satisfied you have correctly identified this plant, please submit your sighting to the National Biodiversity Data Centre
