Backyard wildflowers

Barbarea Vulgaris

Wintercress, yellow rocket, rocketcress: pretty and early leaves are tasty sautéed in a little margarine (maybe a little garlic, mushrooms, over pasta…).

BV’s a biennial; we get a ton of the first year rosettes in the lawn but rarely do they have the chance to mature the second year since we mow occasionally.

Glechoma hederacea

Ground ivy won the back yard despite years of methodical plucking. We’ve decided to just enjoy the lovely purple flowers and fresh, minty aroma when it’s mowed.
The British excused its carriage to the territories for medicinal purposes but in truth it was a delicious pre-hops additive to beer, which, in quantity, can be defended medicinally as an emetic…

It can be easily distinguished from other similar plants by its strong minty smell and crosscut-square stem.

Verbascum Thapsis

Another biennial, (Common mullein, great mullein, flannel wort, velvet wort, velvet undergound or big furry weed) and another British invader, one understandably squirreled off to the new world since it can cure everything up to poverty and death.

The plant (in solution) is known be antihistamine and expectorant and wikipedia claims it is listed as such in the national registry of several nations. Their reference link, however, is to another web page.
Nevertheless, VT is extremely useful for a number of purposes, including acting as an astringent, emollient, and also holding putative antibiotic properties. Being useful to treat contusions, next time someone you know gets a black eye, go to the side of the nearest highway and slice open a mullein.

The first year the plant forms just the fuzzy leafed rosette, soft as a kitten, then the second, goes gargantuan, firing a flower stalk (used by the Romans for torches) 2-3 meters tall. We won’t let it go quite that far as the (likely, Mourning Dove planted) Mullein can produce 100,000 seeds per plant and that just might irritate the neighbors. So maybe we will..