Corn Spurrey

Spergula arvensis

Plant Data

Order:

Caryophyllales

Family:

Caryophyllaceae (Pink)

Flowering Months:

JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC

Flowers:

5 tiny white unnotched petals, 5 styles. Flowers in leafless clusters with stems forked.

Fruit:

Green, smooth, egg-shaped and long capsules. The seeds are blackish and glossy.

Leaves:

The whorled leaves are thread-like, stalkless and furrowed beneath. They are greyish in colour. The stipules fall off early on in the season.

Maximum Size:

40cm tall.

Foraging Notes:

The leaves can be eaten, and the seeds when cooked.
Never consume a wild plant unless you are 100% certain that it is safe to eat and you know that you have identified it correctly.

Aroma:

Flowers are fragrant.

Other Names:

Beggarweed, Bottlebrush, Corn Spurry, Cowquake, Devil's Gut, Dodder, Farmer's Ruin, Field Spurrey, Franke, Fraud Flax, Granyagh, Lousy Grass, Make-beo-oar, Mountain Flax, Pick-pocket, Pickpurse, Pine Chest, Poverty Weed, Sandweed, Starwort, Stickwort, Surrey, Toadflax, Yarr, Yarrel.

Habitats:

Farmland, gardens, grassland, meadows, riverbanks, roadsides, rocks, wasteland.