LABIATAE (MINT FAMILY) 355 
HENBIT 
Lamium amplexicaile, L. 
Other English names: Dead Nettle, Blind Nettle, Bee Nettle. 
Introduced. Annual or biennial. 
Time of bloom: April to October. 
Seed-time: May to November. 
Propagates by seeds. 
Range: New Brunswick to Ontario and Minnesota, southward to 
Florida and Arkansas. 
Habitat: Cultivated ground, waste places. 
This weed flourishes best in cool weather, dying down in the 
heat of midsummer but recovering in autumn and maturing a 
late crop of seeds; autumn seed- 
lings develop fruit very early in the 
spring, so that the soil is fouled 
with two abundant sowings each 
year. Stems six to eighteen inches 
long, slender, square, branching 
from the base and also from the 
lower axils, weak and spreading 
on the ground. Leaves opposite, 
rounded, deeply scallop-toothed, 
sparsely hairy, the lower ones with 
short petioles, the upper ones ses- 
sile and clasping. Flowers in small 
axillary and terminal clusters; 
calyx hairy, with frve erect, awl- 
like teeth: corolla-tube slender, 
with the upper lip erect, entire, 
and bearded, dark red, the lower 
one three-lobed, white, spotted 
with purple; stamens ascending 
against the upper lip, the anterior 
Fic. 246.— Henbit (Lamium am- 
plexicaule). xX}. 
pair the longer. The flowers contain much nectar and honeybees 
are frequent visitors. Seeds four long, ovoid nutlets, dark brown, . 
specked with white dots. These seeds are long-lived and tillage 
should begin early and be continued late, in order to prevent their 
development and distribution. (Fig. 246.) 
