62 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



having his curiosity aroused by so striking a name, 

 impatient to see so distinguished a plant, had it at last 

 placed before him. To what seraphic height his imagina- 

 tion had soared we never knew, but " a flowering nettle " 

 evidently fell far below the ideal he had conceived. The 

 botanical name of the white dead-nettle is Lamium album, 

 and that of the red-flowered species Lamium purpureum. 

 These specific names are sufficiently explanatory to need 

 no elucidation, we imagine, to any of our readers, while 

 the generic name is derived from the Greek word signi- 

 fying the throat, in allusion to the form of the blossom 

 in these plants. 



The white dead-nettle is exceedingly abundant in the 

 hedgerows, on banks, and in waste places and rough 

 ground, and being a perennial, does not, when it has 

 once established itself, give up possession easily. The 

 whole plant is somewhat coarse in appearance, and when 

 bruised has a strong and rather disagreeable smell. The 

 plant ordinarily grows about a foot high, but as it is 

 generally amidst long grass and coarse herbage of one 

 sort or another; the whole plant is rarely seen unless 

 gathered with that intention. The leaves are given off 

 from the stem in pairs, each pair being at right angles 

 with the pairs immediately above and below it, and in 

 the axils of these leaves the whorls or rings of flowers 

 are developed, each ring being composed of from six to 

 twelve blossoms of a delicate creamy-white. The teeth 

 of the calyx are very long and spreading, and form a con- 

 spicuous feature, while the form of the corolla, as it rises 

 and towers above the calyx, is very graceful and beautiful. 

 The plant is evidently a favourite with the bees, that may 

 be seen busily at work in the flowers in the sunshine. 



