Click on images to enlarge
habit (Photo: Jackie Miles and Max Campbell)
lower leaves (Photo: Greg Jordan)
upper leaves, elongated flower clusters and immature fruit (Photo: Jackie Miles and Max Campbell)
flowers with small petals and numerous stamens (Photo: Greg Jordan)
close-up of flowers (Photo: Jackie Miles and Max Campbell)
close-up of mature fruit (Photo: Greg Jordan)
Scientific Name
Reseda luteola L.
Family
Resedaceae
Common Names
dyer's mignonette, dyer's rocket, dyer's weed, mignonette, weld, wild mignonette, yellow weed
Origin
Native to north-eastern Africa (i.e. Egypt and Libya), southern Europe (i.e. Portugal, Spain, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy and Yugoslavia), western Asia (i.e. Afghanistan, Cyprus, Iran, Iraq and Turkey) and Pakistan.
Naturalised Distribution
Widely naturalised in southern Australia (i.e. in New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria, Tasmania and many parts of South Australia and Western Australia). Also sparingly naturalised in south-eastern Queensland.
Notes
Wild mignonette (Reseda luteola) is sometimes regarded as an environmental weed in Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia. For example, it is listed as an environmental weed in the Goulburn Broken Catchment in Victoria.
This species used to be deliberately cultivated to produce a yellow dye, but now it is a relatively common weed of waste places, pastures, crops and roadsides in temperate regions. Wild mignonette (Reseda luteola) sometimes also invades natural areas and during a recent survey was listed as a priority environmental weed in three Natural Resource Management regions.