Botanical name: Lunaria annua    Family: Brassicaceae (Mustard family)

Common honesty is an old-fashioned, about 1 m tall, hairy-stemmed plant. It is a dual-purpose plant, grown partly for its fragrant bright flowers in spring and early summer, but also for its unique seed-heads, oval and translucent, gleaming with an eerie silver light and coveted by dried-flower arrangers. It is properly grown as a biennial, and makes large, well-branched plants in its second year, after which it will seed itself freely around the garden. However, smaller plants can be grown as hardy annuals from an early sowing, with a smaller flower display, but very good compact seed-heads. The common name "Honesty" arose in the 16th century, and it may be due to the translucent seed-pods which are like flattened pea-pods and borne on the plant through winter. In South-East Asia, it is called the Money Plant, because of its seed pods, that seems like silver coins.

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The flower labeled Honesty is ...