Dames Rocket

In the early spring before the nettles, dandelions, ramps and sochan, there's dames rocket, or Hesperis matronalis. It's a delicious, sweet-tasting green every forager should know.

Dames Rocket Identification

As it's in the mustard family, dames rocket plants are easy to identify. Here's a few tips.

• Rosettes of stalked basal leaves appear in early Spring before many other greens.
• The previous years flower stalks are usually visible.
• The greens can be slightly serrated, or nearly smooth.
• It likes disturbed areas, especially places that experience seasonal flooding in my experience.
• In the early Spring, the leaves may appear purple-a natural resistance to cold.
• The flowers can appear as purple to lavender, or white.

Common Names

The plant has many names. Whatever you call it, it's a fantastic edible spring plant. Here's a list of common names I can find.

• damask-violet
• dames-wort
• dame's gillyflower
• night-scented gilliflower
• summer lilac
• sweet rocket
• mother-of-the-evening
• winter gilliflower
• dame's-violet
• queen's gillyflower

Is Dames Rocket Invasive?

Yes, as an aggressive perennial, dames rocket is an invasive species that poses a threat to native plants. It was Introduced to North America via Europe in the 1600s for use in ornamental landscaping.

Like garlic mustard, and watercress it's a prolific seeder. Every year I see it in more places where I forage in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Following that, it's important to inspect the plants you would harvest as food to make sure they haven't been sprayed with herbicide.

Dames Rocket Look ALikes

Dames rocket has no poisonous look alikes, but it's very easy to confuse it with wild phlox, which is a native plant. Once the plant starts to flower, phlox flowers of wild phlox (Phlox paniculata) and white phlox (Phlox divaricata) look very similar.

Another edible look alike is annual honesty (Lunaria annua) which is also a cruciferous plant with four-petaled purple flowers. All of these plants are edible.

Dames Rocket vs Phlox

A key to identifying dames rocket vs phlox is looking at the flowers. Dames rocket always has 4 petals on the flowers. Phlox will have 5.

Dames Rocket Flavor

The leaves are delicious with a flavor like sweet arugula. The young, tender leaves are pleasantly spicy raw (a nod to their heritage in the Brassicaceae or mustard family, just like regular arugula) but without any hint of bitterness.

To be frank: Young dames rocket greens are one of the greatest greens I've eaten, wild or cultivated. 

Cooking Dames Rocket

You can use dames rocket anywhere you'd use spinach. Some people use it in salad but I don't recommend that. The very young leaves a few inches long can be good in salad, but the window for harvesting them is short.

As dames rocket grows, the leaves develop chewy stems, and a hairy texture many won't like. But, after a quick dip in boiling, salted water the texture is greatly improved and the leaves become sweet and delicious.

They're so tender when young that they're easy to overcook and will start to break down in the blanching pot quicker than most greens. To get the most from the plant, harvest more mature leaves, say 6-7 inches long.

In the Spring I often have a nice bowl of them all alone--a sallet, if you will, sallet being the antique name for salad, originally referring to only cooked greens or "pot herbs".

Other Edible Parts

The shoots can be cooked like a small vegetable. The unopened flower buds, or raabs are great cooked quickly like a small broccoli. The flowers are good added to salad with a peppery, slightly sweet flavor not unlike arugula or mustard flowers.

A great way to compliment the sweet flavor of the greens is to serve them like Lebanese Dandelions with Caramelized Onions (Hindbeh).

More Edible Spring Plants

• Garlic Mustard
• Bittercress (Barbarea vulgaris)
• Virginia Waterleaf