All plants /Ground /Wild Mustard
Wild Mustard
Sinapis arvensis, mustard family. Common in East and Central Texas.
At a glance
- What
- Young leaves; flowers; seeds
- How
- Leaves cooked; flowers raw; seeds as mustard
- When
- Cool season
- Where
- Fields and roadsides, often in yellow sheets
- Value
- Vitamins A and C; the seeds make mustard
Caution: A safe mustard-family plant; harvest young leaves away from sprayed fields. Never eat a wild plant on this guide's word alone. Confirm identity against several sources and learn the look-alikes first.
Identification
Fields of four-petaled yellow flowers in early spring; every mustard has flowers in a cross of four petals and a peppery bite.
In the kitchen
Young leaves cook into mustard greens; the bright flowers dress a salad, and the ground seeds are literally mustard.
Photo: Paweł Ryszawa, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Forages well with
Forage safely. Never eat a wild plant on this site's word alone. Confirm identity with several sources, learn the look-alikes, and when in doubt, leave it in the ground.