Lobularia maritima - Sweet Alyssum

Phylum: Magnoliophyta - Class: Equisetopsida - Order: Brassicales - Family: Brassicaceae

Sweet Alyssum, also known as Sweet Alison or Carpet of Snow, is a low-growing annual (occasionally a short-lived perennial) with an extended flowering season.

Changing the name of this family of plants from Cruciferae to Brassicaceae (which includes various cabbage and mustard plants as well as many flowers taken into cultivation) has done little to help promote a group that already had quite a bad press. (Oilseed Rape, which causes allergic reactions in even normally healthy individuals, is an example.) It is therefore important to remember that some of our most loved garden plants and wildflowers are also 'cabbages' - Aubrieta deltoidea, for instance, and Lobularia maritima - most commonly referred to as Sweet Alyssum.

Description

Producing low, spreading cushions up to 30cm tall but more typically 10 to 20cm in helght, Sweet Alyssum flowers are typically 5mm across and have four rounded white or sometimes mauve-tinted petals. (In cutivation, many more strident colour forms have been developed, and these sometimes appear confusingly as garden escapes well away from habitation.) The narrow grey-green leaves are often hidden from sight by the dense clusters of flowers.

Distribution

Native and common in the central and western Mediterranean region and in some parts of Central Europe, this plant is also recorded as a native wildflower in parts of North Africa and western Asia. Elsewhere, including Britain, Ireland, North America and Australia, this is is an introduced garden plant that readily escapes and spreads in the wild.

Flowering times

In their native Mediterranean range, the flowers of Sweet Allysum are at their best between March and June, but there are usually plants still bearing flowers right through to the end of September. In Britain, garden escapes in coastal areas can continue flowering until the first severe frosts of winter.

Habitat

Dry sandy or gravelly coastal soils are the natural habitat of Sweet Alyssum in its native Mediterranean region. This species favours sunny locations but survives in dryish shady places too.

Etymology

The genus name Lobularia refers to the globular form of the seed pods of plants in this genus, while the specific epithet maritima means 'of the sea'.

Similar Species

In the Algarve, in particular, we often see Sweet Alyssum growing together with Burnt Candytuft Aethionema saxatile.

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