Brittle Spring. Stellaria holostea, Greater Stitchwort, and a March Fly, Bibio lanigerus, Schandelo-Venlo, The Netherlands
This Stellaria (inset) is often confused with Field Mouse-ear, Cerastium arvense, and they do look similar. But if you examine them more carefully and compare the reproductive heart of the flowers, their gynoecium, you'll see that Holostea has a pistil triad but Cerastium a quintad.
Stellaria, of course, refers to stars. Holostea is a bit more difficult for what has this delicate plant to do with the Greek for 'bony' (ὁλόστεον is a kind of Plantain, 'a bony plant')?
The answer could be that its stems just above the root break in a 'brittle' manner - as I myself found - in the way of dry bone.
Its visitor here is a March Fly, Bibio lanigerus.
Brittle Spring. Stellaria holostea, Greater Stitchwort, and a March Fly, Bibio lanigerus, Schandelo-Venlo, The Netherlands
This Stellaria (inset) is often confused with Field Mouse-ear, Cerastium arvense, and they do look similar. But if you examine them more carefully and compare the reproductive heart of the flowers, their gynoecium, you'll see that Holostea has a pistil triad but Cerastium a quintad.
Stellaria, of course, refers to stars. Holostea is a bit more difficult for what has this delicate plant to do with the Greek for 'bony' (ὁλόστεον is a kind of Plantain, 'a bony plant')?
The answer could be that its stems just above the root break in a 'brittle' manner - as I myself found - in the way of dry bone.
Its visitor here is a March Fly, Bibio lanigerus.