Reseda alba, white upright mignonette, is a fragrant annual or short-lived perennial herb up to about a metre tall, grown for its spikes of white, frilly flowers. It is easy to grow from seed in sunny, well-drained ground.
Family
Resedaceae (Resed family)
Grows as
Annual, Perennial
Light
Full sun
Water
Water moderately and let the top of the soil dry between waterings; avoid soggy ground.
Soil
Light, well-drained soil; tolerates poor and sandy soil.
Temperature
Hardy in mild climates; protect from hard frost, roughly below -5 °C.
How easy
Easy
Native range
Medit. to Iran and Eritrea
Climate
subtropical
About
Reseda alba is a species of flowering plant in the reseda family known by the common names white mignonette or white upright mignonette. It is native to Europe, Asia, and North Africa, and it can be found in parts of the Americas and Australia as an introduced species. It is also cultivated as an ornamental plant for its spikelike racemes of fragrant white flowers. This is an annual or perennial herb growing up to a meter tall. The leaves are divided deeply into many narrow lobes. The inflorescence, which may take up most of the upper stem, is densely packed with many white flowers. Each flower has five or six petals, each of which is divided into three long, narrow lobes, making the raceme appear frilly. The fruit is a nearly rectangular four-angled capsule up to 1.4 centimeters in length.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Reseda alba by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.