#sweet rocket

[jillraggett]

Plant of the Day

Sunday 1 June 2025

This walled garden was ideal for capturing the evening fragrance of Hesperis matronalis var. albiflora (sweet rocket, dame's violet). This biennial or short-lived perennial will readily self- seed, often coming true to type. The scented white flowers are attractive to bees and other beneficial insects and are also edible looking great sprinkled over salads.

Jill Raggett

[margocooper]

Вечерница обыкновенная, или Вечерница ночная фиалка или Вечерница женская (лат. Hesperis matronalis). Hesperis, or Sweet rocket.

[temixart]

Foraging dinner because I don’t want to drive to the grocery store

[thebotanicalarcade]

Dame's rocket flowers

Photographed by Ralph Ramey

Ohio History Collection

[wildfloweroftheday]

4 April 2019

Found these while out walking. Each has pink flowers of a similar size, with four petals and both are about 20 cm tall... but they are quite different. Only saw one of each. (Both in the Brassicaceae family).

Cuckoo Flower - Cardamine Pratensis

Has quite a thick, wiry stem, with very small leaves. The flowers have long anthers. A native spring flower.

Sweet Rocket - Hesperis matronalis

This is an unusually weedy example, it is usually a larger and more bushy plant than this. A garden escape, bees love it.

[maoyeamh]

[regnum-plantae]

Hesperis matronalis, Brassicaceae

Walking along the river Clyde in Glasgow you can see some large colonies of the biennial sweet or dame’s rocket towering over grasses and other herbaceus plants, in different shades from white to purple. Originally from continental Europe and northern Asia, the plant has naturalised in many parts of the world, including the British Isles and North America, where it was brought over during the XVII century.

As often happens, showy ornamental plants end up colonising new land as garden escapees, but aside from being tall and pretty, sweet rocket is also another great, low maintenance, sweetly-scented wildflower which happens to attract bees and especially butterflies and easily self-sow creating lasting colonies. Moreover, the young leaves, rich in vitamin C, are edible and quite spicy and tangy, as you can expect from a Brassicacea (member of the family which gives us mustard and cabbage), so they are great as a salad addition just as regular rocket. 

Double flowered cultivars of the plant exist and are beautiful, but in general I like simple, plainly accessible blossoms, because what’s the point in a wildflower an insect can’t forage anymore? If you didn’t know, in many double flowers most of the reproductive organs are mutated into additional petals, or the access to the nectaries is simply blocked, making the flower less valuable in a wildflife-friendly garden! 

Other Brassicaceae I wrote about are Cardamine pratensis or the cuckooflower, Raphanus raphanistrum or wild radish, Brassica oleraceae acephala and Brassica rapa var. rapa, or kale and turnip. 

[jillraggett]

Plant of the Day

Thursday 6 June 2024

A rosette-forming biennial, or short-lived perennial Hesperis matronalis (damask violet, dame's rocket, garden rocket, night-scented violet, queen's gilliflower, summer lilac, sweet rocket) forms large colonies of white, or pale to mid-purple, scented flowers. It thrives in sheltered or exposed sites in a range of soils.

Jill Raggett