hunger flower

• Brassicaceae family (cruciferous vegetables)
• Genus Draba (rockflower)
• Species: Draba verna agg. (spring hunger flower)

Hunger flowers are very small and usually only grow to a height of a few centimeters, but in rare cases they can reach up to 25 cm. The leaves form a rosette on the ground, from which an upright, unbranched stem grows. The stem is hairy at the base and bare at the top.

The flowers form a dense cluster that loosens as the fruit ripens. The flowers consist of four tiny green sepals approximately 1.5 to 2.5 mm long with a white skin edge and four white petals 2 to 5 mm long. When looking at the flower, it appears as if there are eight petals. In fact, however, there are four petals that are deeply incised or split in the middle. Depending on the species, the shape of the fruit (silicle) varies from circular to more elliptical. It contains between 15 and 35 seeds, each 0.5 mm long.

The hunger flower is Europe's most common plant species, but it is not a single species, rather a group of species comprising several closely related clans. A total of three clans occur in Central Europe: the narrow-fruited hunger flower, the round-fruited hunger flower, and the egg-fruited hunger flower. However, it is not easy to distinguish between the clans, especially without a magnifying glass. The egg-fruit hunger flower is probably very rare and is considered endangered, the round-fruit hunger flower occurs sporadically to rarely, while the narrow-fruit hunger flower is the most common representative.    

Hunger flowers are so-called therophytes, which means that the entire plant, including the roots, dies after the seeds ripen and only the seeds survive. Such plants are short-lived and, since they do not live longer than a year, are also called annual plants. Short-lived biennial species, which also belong to the therophytes, are called biennial species. However, germination takes place at different times of the year depending on the species. Hunger flowers are winter annual rosette plants. Germination takes place in autumn or during a frost-free period in winter. This results in a leaf rosette that is pressed close to the ground. The leaves can already store energy through photosynthesis and thus form flowering shoots in very early spring.

The flowers of the hunger flowers are similar to disc flowers, which produce nectar and can be visited and pollinated by smaller insects, such as wild bees. However, cold temperatures and/or periods of heavy rainfall in spring often prevent insects from flying and cause the flowers to close. If such cold and wet periods last too long and the insects stay away, self-pollination is entirely possible and common. Self-pollination occurs much more frequently than insects visiting the flowers.  

The tiny seeds, weighing only 0.01 mg, are spread by the wind but also by rain. Hunger flowers love light and grow in very poor soil. Due to their small size, they can only germinate on open sandy, gravelly soil along roadsides, in gravel pits, quarries, patchy sandy dry grasslands, on farmland, and also on burnt areas and trampled areas.

Hunger flowers can be found almost everywhere along roadsides and in patchy meadows and pastures. If the turf is torn up by people walking or vehicles driving over it, this creates an ideal breeding ground for these early bloomers. Hunger flowers particularly like to grow along the edges of gravel paths.

During a walk around the grounds of St. Martins thermal baths Lodge in March, they are hard to miss. The safari "The first signs of spring in the animal and plant kingdom" provides a great opportunity to discover the inconspicuous hunger flowers and other tiny creatures of the steppes. In addition, this safari not only provides information about the first signs of spring in the plant kingdom, but also goes in search of the first animal signs of spring.