Lunaria annua Honesty

An annual or, more often, biennial (and sometimes perennial) herb which has been a popular garden plant in Britain for centuries. The leaves are quite large, triangular pointed and sharply toothed, the lower with long stalks and the upper unstalked. The showy, 4-petalled, pink-purple flowers and the thin, elliptical to round fruits are very distinctive. It has been known in the wild at least since the early 17th Century and it is a fairly common plant throughout much of Britain in verges and banks. There are twp subspecies Lunaria annua ssp. annua and Lunaria annua ssp. pachyrhiza, which is native to Italy and the Balkans and is usually perennial. It is an occasional graden escape in West Glamorgan but some populations (perhaps Lunaria annua ssp. pachyrhiza) have persisted for many years.

Neophyte