This is a bristly, upright annual or biennial plant which is found frequently as a weed in fields, and on bare, waste ground. It's a bushy plant with many branches of hairy stems which bear very pretty white or pale yellow flowers (25-30mm across) in loose heads from April to September. These 4-petalled flowers have lilac veins and are worth examining with a hand lens. The sepals are red tinged and also bristly. In some areas the flowers can be purple or even light orange. The lower leaves are pinnately lobed, the upper being less so. This is an introduced plant and it belongs to the family Brassicaceae.
I first identified this plant growing at Ballyteigue, Co Wexford in April, 2009 and photographed it at that time.
If you are satisfied you have correctly identified this plant, please submit your sighting to the National Biodiversity Data Centre
