64 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



while specimens gathered from the midst of crowded 

 and rank vegetation are often more than a foot long, 

 and, with the exception of the blossom, which is ordi- 

 narily a paler and sicklier purple than in the plant grown 

 under more favourable circumstances, are of a dull green 

 throughout. The main stem of both the white and red 

 dead-nettle is found to be square in section, and hollow, 

 if cut transversely. 



Besides the yellow dead-nettle, to be hereafter described, 

 we have the henbit, or Lamium amplexicaule, a very fairly 

 common species, not altogether unlike the red dead-nettle, 

 but somewhat lighter and more graceful in appearance, 

 the fine, deep rose-coloured flowers having a much more 

 slender tube, and therefore thrown further out from the 

 mass of leaves. The spotted nettle, the Lamium maculatum 

 of some botanists, who give it the rank of an indepen- 

 dent species, is by others regarded merely as a permanent 

 variety of the white dead-nettle, which it closely resembles, 

 except that the flowers are pale purple instead of white, 

 and that the foliage is often marked by a broad irregular 

 streak of white down the centre of each leaf, generally 

 accompanied by smaller dashes or spots on either side. 

 This plant has but very slight claims, however, to rank 

 as a true wildling, though it may often be met with in 

 old-fashioned country gardens, and it is very probable that 

 such specimens as may be met with, apparently in a wild 

 state, are really but the outcasts of some cottager's garden. 



