My Species History
Common Whitlowgrass was one of the first "micro" plants that I observed in the Spring of 2020, in my naturalist infancy. It was maybe the first sort of "reward" for starting to look more closely around me and noticing things that were less showy and eye-catching. It was growing in the cracks between the stepstones of the walkway to our front door at our first house in Joseph.
Since coming back to Oregon, I've looked forward to spotting it in the Spring, as a reminder of those early days and the importance at looking closely and letting yourself be surprised.
Excerpt from A Sand County Almanac
Aldo Leopold has a little chapter about Draba in A Sand County Almanac, and it's one of my favorites:
"Within a few weeks now Draba, the smallest flower that blows, will sprinkle every sandy place with small blooms. He who hopes for spring with upturned eye never sees so small a thing as Draba. He who despairs of spring with downcast eye steps on it, unknowing. He who searches for spring with his knees in the mud finds it, in abundance.
Draba asks, and gets, but scant allowance of warmth and comfort; it subsists on the leavings of unwanted time and space. Botany books give it two or three lines, but never a plate or portrait. Sand too poor and sun too weak for bigger, better blooms are good enough for Draba.
After all it is no spring flower, but only a postscript to a hope. Draba plucks no heartstrings. Its perfume, if there is any, is lost in the gusty winds. Its color is plain white. Its leaves wear a sensible woolly coat. Nothing eats it; it is too small. No poets sing of it. Some botanist once gave it a Latin name, and then forgot it. Altogether it is of no importance-just a small creature that does a small job quickly and well."
