A member of the mint family whose furry little flowers grow in the leaf axils, forming a column in the center of the plant while the leaves project perpendicularly. The flowers themselves look soft and fuzzy, but the rest of the plant is unpleasantly prickly. This dense stand was growing along Fifth Avenue in Soho.
For a description of the species, see the Leonurus cardiaca reference page.
Lemon Balm, or just Balm, was brought over to this country for its delightful scent and flavor and for its supposed medicinal properties. It was believed to cure melancholy, among other things, and certainly gathering a handful and making a tisane from it is a good way to raise one’s spirits. Often planted in herb gardens, it easily escapes, and the tiny seeds wash downhill and form colonies anywhere they find a foothold. It can become quite weedy, but its delightful scent and many uses make it hard to resent. These plants were growing along a fence and by a sidewalk in Beechview.
The name Melissa, from the Greek word for a bee, reminds us that this plant makes bees happy, too, and who doesn’t want happy bees?
For a description of the species, see the Melissa officinalis reference page.
A variable plant with flowers ranging from deep violet to white. It is adaptable to every habitat from open woods to fields, and often pops up in lawns, where it will bloom very low to the ground and sometimes escape the mower. The flower heads that develop into thick thumbs are distinctive. The plants above and below were blooming in a field in South Park.
This plant was blooming in mowed grass in Schenley Park.
For a description of the species, see the Prunella vulgaris reference page.
Also known as Purple Dead-Nettle, on account of a fancied resemblance of the stingless leaves to the leaves of stinging nettles. This little member of the mint family can bloom in literally any month of the year in Pittsburgh, but it puts on its best show in the early spring, when the pretty pink flowers are accented by the purple new leaves at the top of the stalk. The plants can grow almost anywhere; these were growing out of a sidewalk crack in Beechview.
For a detailed description, see the Lamium purpureum reference page.
More pictures of this pretty little mint growing along the Montour Trail in Moon Township. For a description of the species, see the Clinopodium vulgare reference page.
