Two more little white flowers...

There are two plants flowering just now that are easy to overlook.  They are both small and grow in unpromising areas of dry and bare soil.  Add to that they they are only around for a few weeks and then seem to disappear until next Spring and it is not surprising that you may never have noticed them.  They have quite a lot in common: they belong to the brassica/crucifer group (so they have 4 petals), they both have white flowers, and short life cycles so that in 6 weeks they can have grown from seed, flowered, produced seeds and died.

The first one is Common Whitlowgrass (Erophila verna). It is tiny - the ones in the picture were about 3 cm tall.  They are growing at the side of the golf course track near Newtonmore Bowling Club.

Flowering Erophila verna plants showing the small rosette of leaves at base of stem

Erophila verna flower with 4 notched petals

When the flowers die they form green seed pods which ripen and split open.  The pod has two sides separated by a silvery membrane which is left behind after the seeds have fallen.  Just like Honesty but on a much smaller scale.

Erophila verna plant with seed pods - green when full, white when empty.  

The leaves have  withered away.

Erophila verna seed pod releasing seeds and leaving a silvery disc.

The scientific name is all about Spring:

Erophila means "lover of Spring," from the Greek

Verna means "Spring", from Latin

But what is the second plant?  I'll leave that until my next post!