Ball mustard

Neslia paniculata is an erect slender annual herb of the Brassicaceae family growing 30-100 cm tall from a slender taproot. Stems are simple at the base and branched only in the inflorescence, sparsely clothed with short branched (stellate) and simple hairs that lend a slightly rough texture. Lower stem leaves are oblong-lanceolate, 3-7 cm long, narrowed at the base into a short petiole, with entire to remotely toothed margins; upper stem leaves are alternate, sessile and clasping the stem with a deeply auriculate, sagittate base, narrowly lanceolate and gradually reduced upwards. The inflorescence is an elongating, slender, sparsely branched raceme of small flowers borne above the developing fruits at the apex of the inflorescence. Each flower is 2-3 mm across with four small lanceolate green sepals and four narrowly obovate pale lemon-yellow petals, the whole inflorescence almost insignificant. The fruit is small, distinctive and characteristic of the genus: a hard, indehiscent, almost spherical to lenticular silicle 1.5-2.5 mm across borne on a slender spreading pedicel 8-15 mm long, prominently reticulately ridged or pitted on the surface, and containing a single ovoid yellowish-brown seed. Native to dry open ground, cereal fields and waste places throughout Europe, North Africa and Western Asia.