The Early Brassica Gets the Sunlight

Earliest flower of the year! No contest!

Draba verna is not fancy. Draba verna is not big. But Draba verna is fast! Most plants haven't even registered that winter is waning, and already D. verna is up , flowering and going to seed. Indian Plum flowers are but a dream within tightly packed buds when D. verna races to grace February with its very own spring wildflower.



Living in disturbed sites across the Northern hemisphere, this tiny annual plant has quit the "grass race" by doing its business before anyone else has even put forth a new leaf. I guess an appropriate adage in this case would be "the early brassica gets the sunlight". What pollinators are so kind as to indulge the minuscule flowers is a mystery to me, however.

Size compared to my finger!

D. verna's vernacular name is "whitlow grass" (much to the dismay of those of us who care about taxonomy). A "whitlow"is a infection around the fingernail, which plants in the Draba genus were thought to heal in Middle-Age Europe (I don't know if the wisdom of Old Age has confirmed or forsaken this notion).

Although we are now past the single-flower month of February, you might still find D. verna if you look in disturbed places. The ones I found were growing in a loose mat mixed with clover, on hard-packed gravel along a driveway. No more than 7 cm tall, a basal rosette of leaves bearing a single flowering stem; four white, notched petals; fruit flattened, not much longer than wide... After months of having only dried seed-heads and baby leaves to identify, it's pretty exciting to fin a complete specimen with flowers, seed and all!