Short to medium plant. Basal leaves with 3 to 5 pairs of lateral lobes, uppermost pinnately lobed. Flowers yellow, 5 or 6 mm. Fruit short, 1 to 3 cm.

other Barbarea; other yellow crucifers

Basal leaves pinnate; seed-pods appressed (folded up against stem); upper leaves pinnate or pinnately lobed > halfway to midrib; fruits smaller than American winter-cress Barbarea verna (c. <4cm)

General photo of plant in habitat; details of basal and stem leaves.

Damp habitats, wasteland, roadsides and streamsides.

Flowers May to August.

Biennial.

Locally established throughout Britain.

Scarce or under recorded in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 8 of the 617 tetrads.

In the current Checklist (Jeeves, 2011) it is listed as Alien (neophyte); scarce