Florapass
English
Common Mouse-Ear

Common Mouse-Ear

Cerastium fontanum

Identify the Common Mouse-Ear from a photo and log your finds with Florapass.

Coming soon to the App Store and Google Play.

How common: Very common

Common Mouse-Ear is a small, white-flowered plant with softly hairy leaves and stems. It grows across much of the Northern Hemisphere and is a familiar sight in grass and along paths and roads. You can often spot its neat, starry white flowers above low, tufted growth.

Did you know?

  • Each white petal has a small notch, so the flower can look as if it has ten petals.
  • It often stays green through winter as a low rosette of leaves.

About the species

Identification

Small, tuft-forming plant 5–35 cm. Many stems that stand up or rise from the base, all softly hairy. Leaves small, oval to narrow oval, in pairs along the stem, attach straight to it, and feel hairy and a bit thick. Flowers small, white, in branching clusters at the top; five petals with a neat notch so they look split in two. The white petals are about the same length as the green parts behind them. Fruit a slender pod that opens with ten tiny teeth. Differs from common chickweed by being hairier with thicker leaves and broader petals. Flowers in Finland from June to August.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

meadow, yards and roadsides

Flowering

Jun–Aug

About the habitat

Open or lightly shaded, often disturbed places: meadows, field edges, lawns, roadsides, riverbanks and shores, and rocky ground. Very common in most of the country; scarcer in the far north. A northern form is widespread in northern Finland.

Sources

Photo: DouglasGoldman, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CerastiumFontanum2.jpg

Text: Pinkka: Verso- ja leviäintunnistus - Kaikki leviäimet, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38073

Text: Pinkka: Verso- ja leviäintunnistus - Kaikki versot, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38073

Text: Pinkka: Laaja maatalouslajintuntemus 4 op - Koppisiemeniset, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38073

Text: Pinkka: Kasvien talvi - Talvivihreät luonnonkasvit, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38073

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurmih%C3%A4rkki

See also