Cerastium fontanumBaumg.

Common mouse-ear chickweed

WFO wfo-0000595550 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Cerastium fontanum, photographed by Jon Mortin
fig. a Jon Mortin, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-12 / obs. 205459597
Cerastium fontanum, photographed by Jerry Lanfear
fig. b Jerry Lanfear, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203122553
Cerastium fontanum, photographed by Ryan Sorrells
fig. c Ryan Sorrells, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203402693
Cerastium fontanum, photographed by Ryan Sorrells
fig. d Ryan Sorrells, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200858025
Cerastium fontanum, photographed by Daniel Greenwood
fig. e Daniel Greenwood, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202153049
Cerastium fontanum, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. f Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199785828
Cerastium fontanum, photographed by Ryan Sorrells
fig. g Ryan Sorrells, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200171699
Cerastium fontanum, photographed by Jamie VanBuskirk
fig. h Jamie VanBuskirk, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202973435

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 1,556 observations

Peak flowering in May, from 1,556 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 96 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Alsine trivialis E.H.L.Krause
  • Arenaria anomala (Waldst. & Kit. ex Willd.) Shinners
  • Cerastium alpestre Schur
  • Cerastium alpigenum Schur
  • Cerastium caespitosum Gilib.
  • Cerastium caespitosum Asch.
  • Cerastium caespitosum f. serpentini Novák
  • Cerastium caespitosum subsp. alpinum (Mert. & W.D.J.Koch) Bech.
  • Cerastium caespitosum subsp. fontanum (Baumg.) Schinz & R.Keller
  • Cerastium caespitosum subsp. triviale (E.H.L.Krause) Hiitonen
  • Cerastium caespitosum var. mauretanicum Maire
  • Cerastium caespitosum var. montevidense (Rohrb.) Malme
  • Cerastium caespitosum var. pseudoalpestre Bech.
  • Cerastium connatum Beck
  • Cerastium fontanum f. glutinosum (Möschl) M.B.Wyse Jacks.
  • Cerastium fontanum f. gracile (Hayek) M.B.Wyse Jacks.
  • Cerastium fontanum f. holosteoides (Fr.) M.B.Wyse Jacks.
  • Cerastium fontanum f. vulgare (Hartm.) M.B.Wyse Jacks.
  • Cerastium fontanum subsp. alpestre (Hegetschw.) Janch.
  • Cerastium fontanum subsp. alpicum Gartner
  • Cerastium fontanum subsp. alpinum (Mert. & W.D.J.Koch) Janch.
  • Cerastium fontanum subsp. appenninum Gartner
  • Cerastium fontanum subsp. balcanum Gartner
  • Cerastium fontanum subsp. fontanum

and 72 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.