Deer Food

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Meet Barbera Vulgaris - Winter Cress. A biennial non-native.  Between you and me I think that is a really cool name.

I found this growing in the tall grass field out back of the house. It belongs to the mustard family even though it it is not a true mustard.  One of the first wild flowers to bloom in the spring and as a member of the brassica family it is a favorite of whitetail deer.

If you want to practice some folk medicine you can use the plant to make a poultice to treat wounds and its tiny black seeds as a pepper substitute.

It grows just about everywhere and you'll fine it throughout Wisconsin.  There doesn't seem to be a large amount of this non-native growing around here so I'm hopeful the over-abundant deer around here will eat it all and save me the effort of applying an herbicide.