Confusing Little White Flowers Particularly in Spring, you can find a number of plants with quite small white flowers or even hardly any flowers at all, which can be confusing to identify.

This is a very rough guide and is in order of the number of identification queries we often receive on our Wild Flower Society Facebook page.

Plants in the same genus which are the subject of identification queries most often are denoted with a star (*).

Others (unstarred), in the same genus are less often mentioned or are uncommon or even rare. Wavy Bittercress * Cardamine flexuosa C. flexuosa has six stamens, two of which can be lower in the flower and hard to see. You need a hand lens to differentiate this from C. hirsuta.
Always count the stamens on more than one flower. The numbers are not as consistent as you would hope. Hairy Bittercress* Cardamine hirsuta C. hirsuta has 4 stamens and often the seed pods (siliquae) overtop the flowerbuds. You should use a hand lens to count the stamens and will need to do it more than once.

Hairy Bittercress is often not at all hairy. Never assume anything from a common name.
Chickweed* Stellaria media Stellaria media is one of the commonest wayside wild flowers and a persistent garden/allotment weed.

It has a line of hairs down the stem and usually has five petals and sepals. However the petals are split to the base so it looks as though it has ten petals.

It is a sprawling annual plant with quite bright green, oval leaves. There are flowers to be found at all times of year but they tend not to open until the ambient tempertaure is at least 10 Celsius.

Some of the hairs can be glandular. Greater Stitchwort* Stellaria holostea Stellaria holstea is quite common but tricky to see until it flowers. It tends to grow on grassy banks and the leaves are a similar shape and colour to the grass which surrounds it.

It flowers in March to April And has five petals split to half way down. Typically there will be dozens of prominent flowers all in flower at once providing a very cheery sight in Spring. Lesser Stitchwort* Stellaria graminea Stellaria graminea is far less prominent in the grassland where it thrives, than Stellaria holostea (Greater Stitchwort) .

The petals are thinner and split to the base so it looks as though it has ten petals.

The flowering time for Lesser Stitchwort is summertime and there is little if any overlap in flowering periods between Greater and Lesser Stitchwort. Lesser Chickweed Stellaria pallida Although it isn't a rare plant, Stellaria pallida can be quite hard to find.

Very often there are no petals just pale, bright green/yellowish leaves. Close examination with a hand lens will often reveal flowers that aren't visible to the naked eye.

It tends to be a coastal plant growing in dunes or sandy habitats and it is best to search for it early in the year at the beginning of March or earlier.

Often, by the beginning of May, there is little trace it was ever flourishing at the site you saw it only a few weeks before.

In a warm Spring it has often gone without trace by mid May.

Shepherd's-purse* Capsella bursa-pastoris The key to a successful identification of this plant is the fruits. They have a shape which is said to resemble an old-fashioned Shepherd's-purse but very insignificant little white flowers. Without flowers it is very tricky but the basal rosette will give you a clue. At very early stages it can be confused with such as Thale Cress (Arabidopsis thaliana). Thale Cress* Arabidopsis thaliana In its early stages it can be easy to confuse the basal rosette of leaves (without a flower stem) with that of Capsella bursa-pastoris (Shepherd's-purse).

identification is therefore best attempted when there is a flowering stem with flowers and fruits.

In this case the fruits are totally different from Shepherd's-purse. They are thin, cylindrical and long, tending to stick out at right angles to the stem.

Arabidopisis thaliana is a plant much used in molecular biology experiments and was the first to have its complete genome elucidated. Danish Scurvygrass* Cochlearia danica There are many more identification queries concerning this plant these days than there were a couple of decades ago.

This is because Cochlearia danica has spread along our roads particularly dual carriage ways and motorways, populating the central reservation where it can grow with impunity.

Cochleria danica is a halophyte (tolerates salty habitats) and so was mostly known from the seaside for many decades. Now we use salt to keep roads ice free and this reduces competition for Danish Scurvygrass so it thrives.

In April look out for masses of white flowes with purplish buds growing by main roads. The ivy-shaped leaves are typical and it has spherical fruits. Common Whitlowgrass* Erophila verna Erophila verna is the commonest of the Whitlowgrasses (which aren't grasses of course) and is a tiny plant no more than a few centimetres tall. It has four petals split to the base so looks as though it has eight. As with many small white flowers, you need to look for the fruits (see below) which are broadly elliptical. Sweet Alison* Lobularia maritima Lobularia maritima is mostly coastal but you can find it growing inland occasionally. A healthy, vigorous plant has these multiple rounded flowerheads which are unmistakeable but not all plants grow in ideal conditions. It is hairy and has thin lanceolate (long narrow oval) leaves.