WART CRESS

also called Swine Cress (genus Coronopus), any of 10 species of plants of the mustard family (Brassicaceae), native to dry parts of Eurasia and North America. Lesser swine cress (C. didymus), a coarse, tough cosmopolitan weed with small, four-petaled white flowers and finely cut leaves, is native to North America but naturalized in Europe. An annual or biennial herb, wart cress bears tightly clustered small flowers, warty, dumbbell-shaped fruits, and a long taproot. It has a strong odour and is tough enough to grow, flattened to the ground, in pathways.