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Arabidopsis thaliana
Cluster of tiny white, four-petaled flowers at top of stems. Yellow flower centers. Somewhat erect seed pods. Bluish-green stems with a mass of straight leaved foliage at base. Stems grow somewhat sprawling. Native to Eurasia.
Suburban garden and yard.
Thank you drP!
Spotted on Apr 26, 2013
Submitted on May 1, 2013
4 Comments
Happy to help, ForestDragon. I hope to spot this myself one of these days!
drP, I wanted to thank you again! I do believe you are correct with the ID. I can't seem to find anything similar. It grows pretty rampant here in the yard in the spring (if my mother-in-law doesn't weed it out of the garden).
Thanks drP. I will be looking into it when I have some time. Who knew this would be so difficult?!
It's not in my Newcomb's but I think it's Arabidopsis thaliana, aka thale cress. It's hard to see the basal leaves and lower stem, but if it's not this guy, it's a very close relative. Check out http://www.flowers.goodpages.co.uk/index... and see what you think.
Note 1: If you look for pictures online, you may or may not see standard A. thaliana. This plant is the number one model organism for plant genetics, in much the same way that fruit flies are one of the big model organisms for animal genetics. As such, many of the pictures are of strains that look different from the wild plant.
Note 2: As a geneticist/molecular geneticist by training, I'm having some severe spotting envy right now. I've never come across it in the wild.
Hope this helps!