WHITE DEAD NETTLE 225 



Lamium, Pliny, is the Latin name for the Dead Nettle, and the 

 second Latin name refers to the purple colour of the petals. 



This common plant is known by the names of Red or Sweet 

 Archangel, Badman's Posies, Black Man's Posies, Day Nettle, Dead 

 Nettle, Red Dead Nettle, Deaf Nettle, Dee Nettle, Dog Nettle, 

 French Nettle, Nettle, Purple Dead-nettle, Rabbit-meat, Tormentil.' 

 Dead Nettle, Day Nettle, are meant to indicate its harmless character. 



A writer says: " It is far from being foetid as is the case with many 

 others, so that by some for distinction this plant is termed the Sweet 

 Archangel ". In Sweden it has been boiled as a pot herb. 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



258. Lamiumpurpureiim, L. Stem suberect, leaves stalked, cordate, 

 crenate, flowers purple, corolla-tube straight, with hairs exceeding the 

 calyx-teeth, lower lip with obcordate lobe. 



White Dead Nettle (Lamium album, L.) 



Like Purple Dead Nettle the White Dead Nettle is modern, so far 

 as we know, and is found to-day throughout the North Temperate 

 Zone in Europe, N. Africa, N. Asia, and is an introduced plant in 

 N. America. In Great Britain it is universally common, but absent in 

 Cardigan, Anglesea, Mid Lanes, I. of Man, N. Aberdeen, Elgin, 

 Easterness, and is not found in the N. Highlands or North Isles 

 except in Dumbarton. So it ranges from Moray to the south coast, 

 but is rare and local in Scotland and Ireland. 



As remarked under Purple Dead Nettle, this species is much more 

 truly indigenous or addicted to a truly wild type of station. At the 

 same time, it is nowhere more common than on waste or cultivated 

 land. Its favourite situation is under a hedge on a high bank, with 

 a gentle, or even steep, slope to the south. 



The plant is prostrate, then erect in habit. The rootstock is 

 creeping, branched, and the plant is stoloniferous. The stems are 

 square in section, rooting and branching from the base, then erect. 

 The leaves are heart-shaped to egg-shaped, with a long and narrow 

 point, stalked, coarsely toothed, scalloped, rarely spotted or blotched 

 with white. The lower leaves are long -stalked. The leaves and 

 whole plant resemble the true Nettle, and this may be an example 

 of protective resemblance. The two often grow together. 



The flowers are white, rarely pink, large, in whorls of 6-10, crowded 

 above, distant below. The hairs in a ring on the curved corolla-tube, 

 which is longer than the calyx, are oblique. The calyx is smooth or 



VOL. IV. 61 



