Common Whitlow-Grass

This miniature plant, the Common Whitlow-Grass (Erophila verna) is not a grass but a member of the Brassicaceae, or Crucifer-family. Mustard and Cuckoo-flowers, other crucifers, are giants compared to it. It is even smaller than a normal-sized pine-cone, as you see in the picture below.



Even if it is easy to overlook, the Common Whitlow-Grass is not difficult to find. Just put your nose to the ground in a dry place at a roadside, or in the center of a sandy path, and more often than not there are thousands of it.

Spring Violets

This is a Sweet Violet (Viola odorata). The cold does not prevent it from flowering.






















There is another violet flowering early in march, the Hairy Violet (Viola hirta) you see here.
















They look very much alike. Mostly the Sweet Violet has flowers a bit earlier than the Hairy Violet, but not always. Mostly the former is darker in colour, and the latter slightly hairier, but not always. Leaves and flowers of the Sweet Violet are a bit rounder than those of the Hairy Violet, generally, but not always. The Sweet Violet mostly smells sweet, but is sometimes odorless. The Sweet Violet often has stolons, the other one never has. Most of the time you find the hairy one in slightly drier and sunnier places than the sweet one. Etcetera, etcetera. And there exists also an intermediate form, a crossbreed between the two.

Well, how to distinguish the two? You have to take into account a number of characteristics at the same time, and even then it is easy to be wrong.

But does it really matter?

Common Alder

The Common Alder (Alnus glutinosa) only grows on marshy ground. Often, in a valley, a ribbon of trees marks the course of a streamlet.



In winter tree fellers leave piles of trunks in their wake. Those of the Common alder are easy to recognize by their clear orange colour.

Soon the tree will flower, but now only last year's female catkins are visible, they look like small black pine cones. The new male catkins are already growing longer, getting ready for things to come.