Yellow cress is a member of the mustard family. Its flattened rosette makes it an ideal turf weed, but its rootstalks and rhizomes make it especially adaptable to these conditions. This perennial can creep and spread to form large truf-smothering patches. Leaves are long, narrow, deeply cut and lobed. In turn, each lobe has very irregular edges. If allowed to grow, yellow cress has slender and ascending branches. They are topped by clusters of tiny yellow flowers with four petals. Seed pods are slender and point upward. Yellow cress is most common in states east of the Mississippi, but not in the deep South.