Leaves and catkins and Common Whitlow grass

 We have just had a week of stunning weather - clear blue skies and sunshine - and spring seems to be here at last.  The tadpoles are wriggling in my pond, our garden blackbird is gathering worms, the blue tits are investigating the nest boxes and I am gardening - sowing seeds and weeding. Only the larches have green leaves but it can't be long before all the trees green up.  If you want to get to know your tree leaves, there is a FREE poster available at https://microcosmic.shop/products/tree-leaves-poster-free-download

You download the pdf file for free to print yourself or you can buy a paper version from them.

Most of the willows just have catkins at the moment and I was shown this photo of some unfamiliar catkins near the Calder.

After a  bit of research, I think these are the female catkins of the Grey Sallow (Salix cinerea) which is a Willow.  Male catkins are the yellow fluffy ones. Willows are dioecious which means that plants are either male or female, not both, so the male and female catkins are on different plants. There are many varieties of willow (at least 23) so only some are on the poster above.  They also hybridise with each other so giving a  hybrid tree an exact name needs an expert - or at least someone with more experience than I have.  To make things even more complicated, some species have variants called sub species.  So best just to settle for Willow!

Now is a good time to see a small white flowering plants called Common Whitlow Grass which is one of the first plants to flower.  It is tiny but easy to spot.  If you are passing Newtonmore School there is lots of it at the base of the wall near the children's entrance.

Common Whitlow Grass

It isn't a grass but a tiny crucifer (the cabbage family) and has white seed pods like miniature versions of Honesty. It has a rosette of leaves at the base and then some small stems with flowers  at the tips. It does not mind poor soil, and is adapted by being small and disappearing before the soil dries out in the summer.  It is an annual so its seeds remain, ready to germinate in the spring (and foiling the school Janny and his weed killer!)

There are more photos in a previous post here.

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!