Invasive cabbage threatening growth of wildflowers in Texas

There’s a war raging in Texas this spring — between wildflowers and bastard cabbage.

Officials say bastard cabbage, also known by its proper name, rapistrum rugosum, poses a threat to the livelihood of wildflowers, which bloom from April to September in the Lone Star State.

“This invasive plant outcompetes our native wildflowers by blocking sun with its broad leaves, leaving some fields a complete monoculture of bastard cabbage,” said officials with the University of Texas at Austin Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. “It particularly loves disturbed areas, like new roadsides and lands cleared for development.”

According to the University of Texas at Austin Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, bastard cabbage has surfaced into “natural areas along streams” plus forests. Additionally, officials have recorded bastard cabbage in at least 17 states and multiple Canadian provinces.

The Texas Invasive Species Institute says the bastard cabbage can form a “vegetative cover of mostly one species— more specifically a monoculture. History has shown the wild plant typically grows in areas such as agricultural fields, disturbed lands or roadside. Although it’s unclear how bastard cabbage became prominent in the United States, experts say its seeds spread through contaminated grass seed mixes and even mulching materials. As far as its appearance, the multi-leaf plant can grow 1-5 feet or higher. While most of the plant remains greens, there’s a portion of it that have a reddish color. It grows from early spring to the summer.

Also known as a turnip-weed, a common giant mustard, a ball mustard, a wild turnip, a wild rape or a tall mustard-weed, the bastard cabbage has a designation of terrestrial noxious-weed seed in Texas, according to the Texas

Invasive Species Institute.

For those looking to do their part in ridding Texas soil of bastard cabbage, officials at the University of Texas at Austin Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center suggest these tips:

• Hand-pull the plants from the bastard cabbage and do so before it seeds

• Using a lawn mower helps to remove some of the bastard cabbage, but it doesn’t remove all of the seeds already stored in the soil

• Depending on the size of the area of activity, putting down a herbicide may provide better results for elimination of the bastard cabbage

To keep it at bay, experts encourage people to plant more native wildflower seeds once the bastard cabbage has been removed.

Also, tasks such as cleaning the topsoil and washing vehicles — returning from contaminated sites of bastard cabbage— will aid in preventing more from springing up.