132 FARM WEEDS OF CANADA 



HEDGE NETTLE (Stachys palustris L.) 



Other English names: Woundwort, Clown's Woundwort, 

 Clown's Heal, Cockhead, Dead Nettle, Rough Weed, Hairy 

 Mint. 



T 



Native. Perennial by a tuber-like rootstock producing 

 many runners. Stem erect, leafy, its edges with coarse, down- 

 ward-turned hairs. Leaves stalkless, lance-shaped, oblong, 

 tapering at the apex, rounded at the base, with rounded teeth, 

 hairy. Flowers pale red or spotted, formed into a long, inter- 

 rupted spike of 6 to 10 flowered whorls at the axils of leaves; 

 calyx 1/2 the length of the corolla, bristly hairy, with spiny teeth. 



The seed (Plate 75, fig. 66) is a dark brown or black nutlet, 

 about 1/12 of an inch long, egg-shaped, pointed at the base, 

 which bears a small, shrunken scar. The one side is sharply 

 keeled from the scar up to 2/3 the length of the seed. Surface 

 dull, finely wrinkled. Found abundantly among screenings 

 of western wheat. 



Time of flowering : June to September; seeds ripe by July. 



Propagation : By seeds and rootstocks. 



Occurrence : In moist lands throughout Canada. 



Injury: A secondary weed in eastern Canada and northern 

 Alberta, giving trouble only in moist, low lands in grain fields 

 and meadows. 



Remedy: Good drainage, clean cultivation with short 

 rotation of crops, will check this weed and enable cultivated 

 crops to smother it out. 



To put a gloss upon their practice, the physicians call an herb (which country people 

 vulgarly know by the name of dead nettle) archangel; whether they favor more of super- 

 stition or folly, I leave to the judicious reader. There is more curiosity than courtesy 

 to my countrymen used by others in the explanation as well as of the names, as des- 

 cription of this so well known herb. They grow almost everywhere, unless it be in the 

 middle of the street; it makes the heart merry, drives away melancholy, quickens the spirit. 



Culpepper, 1652. 



