Draba and friends

 

I went back to the split-rail fence where yesterday I photographed Spring Whitlow Grass, known to botanists as Draba verna, to try to get better pictures of it as well as the Filaree. Today there seemed to be millions of Draba blooming and a few dozen new Filaree where yesterday I only found two.  I also did a little research and found that there are over 400 species of Draba world-wide. According to my old Peterson's guide there are at least six species in California, and D. verna is the only one with split-ended petals. I looked back to old blogposts where I had mentioned Spring Whitlow Grass soon after discovering what it was. Check my blog for April 3, 2013, titled All in the Neighborhood, and the one on March 17, 2016, titled All Fired Up Again. Based on those old blogs, I thought it would be a few more weeks before the Henbit Dead Nettle would bloom. I was quite excited to find several patches of it bloomed today for the first time!

The above cluster of three beauties took my breath away. These are all very small flowers so it's easy to overlook them. The Draba blossoms in the foreground are around 1/3" in diameter. It's worth getting down on hands and knees for a closer look. I'll write more about the Henbit in a later post, but for now - it's a member of the mint family.

The above photo is about the best one I got to show off the structure of the flower and those petals with split ends. Below, I'm holding one I picked to better show off a seed.

This last photo shows the relative size of the blossoms of Filaree and Draba. Based on my memory of the Filaree which was a little over a half inch in diameter, I need to revise my estimate of the size of the Draba. Make that around 1/5 of an inch. It's great to see all three species within a small area. They will soon be joined by several other tiny species.