Draba verna

Draba verna (the common whitlow-grass, also placed in Erophila verna) is a tiny ephemeral annual herb of the family Brassicaceae, usually only 2 to 15 cm tall. It forms a small basal rosette of lance-shaped, slightly toothed, hairy leaves from which rise slender, leafless flowering stems. The minute white flowers each have four deeply two-lobed petals, so the four petals appear as eight, arranged in a small loose raceme. The fruit is a flattened, elliptical seed pod. One of the earliest spring flowers, it blooms from late winter into spring and quickly withers. Native across Europe, North Africa and temperate Asia and widely naturalised in North America, whitlow-grass grows on dry, bare, sandy and gravelly ground, walls, rocks, paths and disturbed open soils.