Also called Purple or Red Dead-Nettle, these little flowers are in full bloom right now in the middle of April. These tiny flowers pop up in lawns and along the edges of sidewalks. If they were larger or rarer, they would be garden treasures; their success makes them unappreciated. These pictures were taken in Beechview on April 12 and 14.
For a fuller description, see the Lamium purpureum reference page.
One of the first spring wildflowers, Purple Archangel or Purple Dead-Nettle can take advantage of a warm period in the middle of the winter to bloom for a few days. It is a very attractive flower on a small scale; as weeds go, this one is hard to object to very much.
See the full description on the Lamium purpureum page at the reference site.
For obvious reasons, Lamb’s Ears are popular in the garden. No one can resist feeling the soft, woolly leaves, and the silvery-whitish foliage is a striking accent even when the plants are not blooming. The flowers are a pleasantly contrasting pinkish-purple. They produce many fertile seeds, and the seeds wash downhill and sprout somewhere else, and soon you have colonies of Lamb’s Ears where nobody planted them. But it’s hard to object to them much.
Gray describes the genus Stachys; in his time, this particular species had not established itself in the wild enough for him to take notice of it.
STÀCHYS [Tourn.] L. HEDGE NETTLE. Corolla not dilated at the throat; upper lip erect or rather spreading, often arched, entire or nearly so; the lower usually longer and spreading, 3-lobed, with the middle lobe largest and nearly entire. Stamens 4, ascending under the upper lip (often reflexed on the throat after flowering); anthers approximate in pairs. Nutlets obtuse, not truncate. — Whorls 2-many-flowered, approximate in a terminal raceme or spike (whence the name, from stachys, a spike).
Although Gray does not describe the species S. byzantina, no description is really necessary. No other Stachys in our area has anything like the silver-haired foliage of this plant; it is nearly impossible to misidentify.
Heal-All, or Self-Heal, is everywhere; it tolerates a good deal of mowing, and seems to be indifferent to sun or shade, so it can establish itself in urban lawns as easily as at the edge of the woods. The color of the flowers is variable from deep purple to white, including bicolors; here we see almost the complete range, all from plants growing in one shady lawn in Mount Lebanon, where they were blooming in early July.
Gray describes the genus and the species:
PRUNÉLLA L. SELF-HEAL. Calyx tubular-bell-shaped, somewhat 10-nerved, naked in the throat, closed in fruit; upper lip broad, truncate. Corolla ascending, slightly contracted at the throat and dilated at the lower side just beneath it, 2-lipped; upper lip erect, arched, entire; the lower reflexed-spreading, 3-cleft, its lateral lobes oblong, the middle one rounded, concave, denticulate. Filaments 2-toothed at the apex, the lower tooth bearing the anther; anthers approximate in pairs, their cells diverging. — Low perennials, with nearly simple stems, and 3-flowered clusters of flowers sessile in the axils of round and bract-like membranaceous floral leaves, imbricated in a close spike or head. (Name said to be from the German Bräune, a disease of the throat, for which this plant was a reputed remedy. Often written Brunella, which was a pre-Linnean form.)
P. vulgàris L. (HEAL-ALL, CARPENTER-WEED.) Leaves ovate-oblong, entire or toothed, petioled, hairy or smoothish; corolla violet or flesh-color, rarely white, not twice the length of the purplish calyx. — Woods and fields, Nfd. to Fla., westw. across the continent. June-Sept. (Eu.)
Var. laciniata L Some upper leaves tending to be pinnatifld. (P. laciniata L.) — Said to be introd. near Washington, D. C. (Adv. from Eu.)
The fleshy soft, hairy leaves delight children and any adult not too far gone to take pleasure in simple tactile sensations. The purple flowers make a gorgeous contrast to the whitish hairs of the leaves and stems, but appear only for a relatively short time. This is a garden favorite that seeds itself liberally: once you plant Lamb’s Ears, you have them forever, and they pop up in unexpected places. They can often be found in the city as an escape; these plants were growing on a bank in Beechview, where they were blooming at the beginning of June.
Gray describes the genus Stachys; in his time, this particular species had not established itself in the wild enough for him to take notice of it.
STÂCHYS [Tourn.] L. HEDGE NETTLE. Corolla not dilated at the throat; upper lip erect or rather spreading, often arched, entire or nearly so; the lower usually longer and spreading, 3-lobed, with the middle lobe largest and nearly entire. Stamens 4, ascending under the upper lip (often reflexed on the throat after flowering); anthers approximate in pairs. Nutlets obtuse, not truncate. — Whorls 2-many-flowered, approximate in a terminal raceme or spike (whence the name, from stachys, a spike).
Although Gray does not describe the speciesS. byzantina, no description is really necessary. No other Stachys in our area has anything like the silver-haired foliage of this plant; it is nearly impossible to misidentify.
