Early Forget-me-not

In the same place as Grey Mouse-ear grow many small blue flowers, also annuals with a short life-cycle. The Early Forget-me-not (Myosotis ramosissima) is the smallest of all forget-me-nots, the plants are not larger than five centimeters high.

Grey Mouse-ear

In a dry meadow there are always some places where the grass does not grow. But Grey Mouse-ear (Cerastium brachypetalum) does, in large quantities. It is an annual plant with a short life-cycle, in one or two weeks the green stems in the image will be dry and yellow and the plant dies.

Yellow Anemone

Here is another Anemone. Except for its color it looks much like a Wood anemone, but it is a bit larger and flowers a bit later. The Yellow Anemone (Anemone ranunculoides) prefers  woods and a moist soil.


It is not easy to find one because it is a rare species in this region.


















Here is one that grows besides a small stream, the water reflects the blue sky. The image shows clearly the involucre.

Wood Anemone

From the beginning of April little white flowers cover the woodfloor. The Wood Anemone (Anemone nemorosa) is in full bloom. This plant prefers slightly acid soils in deciduous forests. Here, small insects search for food among the many yellow stamen.


In anemones, every stem carries a flower, and lower on this stem a whorl of bracts, the involucre.

The plants looks a bit like a buttercup, leaves and flowers are alike. Yes, it belongs to the same family of Ranunculaceae.

True Oxlip

Primroses grow everywhere, but this one, the True Oxlip (Primula eliator) is a bit less common. Sometimes you can find its pale yellow flowers on long stems near a small stream, under trees.

Ivy-leaved Toadflax

Nearly all year round it has some purple flowers, but now the Ivy-leaved Toadflax (Cymbalaria muralis) is in full bloom. It is rooted in cracks in a rock or an old stone wall or another vertical surface, often not far away from water.


Here it grows on a rock above a moist place, but good places to look for it are also on the walls of an old wash-house or a mill-race, or on a wall beside a stream.

The purple flowers, with two yellow protrusions on the lower lip, are easy to recognize.

White violets

This is the right time of the year to look for small violets. Normally they are blue, but sometimes you find white ones. Yes, this happens, sometimes a Sweet violet has flowers that are white instead of blue (see also Spring violets). But the plant here below grows on dry and loamy soil, in the midst of a not frequently used track in a hornbeam-oak forest. It is the typical habitat of another species, the White Violet (Viola alba).


Small morphological details also show it is a species on its own. But you need a magnifying glass to see them.

Two metres away on the same track grows a variety of the White Violet with darker leaves and a purple spur. Let us call it the Dark-leaved Violet (Viola alba ssp scotophylla).












In the foreground you notice some purple-veined leaves of last year. Under the flower new leaves are developing.