The second little white flower…

…is Thale cress, Arabidopsis thaliana. It flowers in the spring and one of the places it is flowering now in Newtonmore is  at the corner of  Old Glen Road and Creag Dhu Road, in a garden, opposite Glen Grove.

 This is a (not great) photograph of  one of the plants there leaning over the metal fence:

Thale cress

It could be mistaken for bittercress as the flowers are similar but it tends to be taller and the leaves at the base are simpler.

This photo shows the leaves of both plants:

Comparison of Bittercress and Thale cress leaves

As the plant develops the basal leaves wither away.

There is a lovely illustration in Flora Londinensis by William Curtis,  "Plates and descriptions of such plants as grow wild in the environs of London : with their places of growth, and times of flowering, their several names according to Linnæus and other authors : with a particular description of each plant in Latin and English : to which are added, their several uses in medicine, agriculture, rural economy and other arts"  which was published in 1777. (You can download the whole book for free from the link.)

The plant has had several name changes, in this case from Arabis to Arabidopsis.  Arabidopsis means resembling Arabis and Arabis means Arabian, though I can find no reason why it has this name. Thaliana is because it was first discovered by Johannes Thal in the sixteenth century.

Thale cress has a quick turnaround - its complete life cycle only takes 6 weeks - which makes it well suited to scientific research.  It was the first plant to have its genome completely sequenced. There is a whole internet site devoted to its research:  The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR) and if you fancy having a look there is free access until 31 May 2020.

Links

Flora Londinensis  https://archive.org/details/FloraLondinensi6Curt

The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR)