Botanizing the Soccer Park

The Sycamore Greenway trail extends almost exactly two miles from its northern entry point, flanked by mosaic obelisks near Grant Wood Elementary, to its southern terminus at the parking lot in Kickers Soccer Park. Usually my visits to the south end of the trail end a fifth of a mile short, at the fenced boundary of the soccer park, for no reason other than it seems like the manicured and sometimes-populated athletic fields beyond the gateway are just a little too distant from the Greenway. 

On a recent windy day, I paused at the fence, my usual turnaround, and instead capped my lens and forged ahead with the intent of getting some exercise with a purposeful walk around the soccer park. That lasted all of 15 steps before a cloud of curious, tiny white flowers growing very low to the ground in the dry soil next to the trail drew my attention. 

Jagged Chickweed (tentative)

It's fascinating how different weedy plants can be seen in different yet nearby places, like the mullein that is scarce along the Greenway but proliferates a bit west near TTRA. These flowers were itty-bitty and snowy white, with jagged tips and held in a cup of pointed sepals. The stems had what appeared to be glandular hairs along them. I haven't noticed similar flowers in the open areas along the rest of the trail, so I took some photos and kept walking.

Not many minutes later, heading back north along Soccer Park Road, another cloud of low-growing white flowers caught my eye. Not quite the same as the first: the stems were a reddish-brown rather than fleshy green, lacking paired leaves along their length, and had flattened capsules atop the stems alongside the white flowers (which were also subtly different, with the white petals more separated from each other, the tips bluntly rounded rather than irregularly pointed). Again, a tiny flower I hadn't encountered previously.

 A few photos later, and I was heading back home to see if iNaturalist could help identify my little white flowers (I use the term "botanizing" in the title loosely, as a real botanizer would do a much more thorough job than I, making note of and capturing clear images of the flowers and flower parts, leaves and stems, any seeds present, etc.). The first little white flower was suggested as Jagged Chickweed (Holosteum umbellatum), a non-native from Eurasia. The second was also tentatively identified as a non-native from Eurasia, Early or Spring Whitlowgrass (Draba verna), with a basal rosette of leaves above which the inflorescence is held aloft on a smooth stem. 

Spring Whitlowgrass (tentative), tiny white flowers
held aloft on a tangle of wiry stems

Both plants bloom very early in the season, and with their low profile and brief blooming period, are easy to overlook. I can't be sure they don't grow elsewhere along the trail, but taking a detour through an unfamiliar part of the trail and nearby roadsides was the perfect opportunity to take note of things a bit unusual, and a reminder not to make assumptions about whether any trail is worth visiting (they are...they always are!).