Lamium album
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Lamium album | ||||||||||||||
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White deadnettle
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Lamium album L. |
Lamium album (White Deadnettle) is a flowering plant in the family Lamiaceae, native throughout Europe and western Asia, growing in a variety of habitats from open grassland to woodland, generally on moist, fertile soils.
It is a herbaceous perennial plant growing to 50-100 cm tall, with green, four-angled stems. The leaves are 3-8 cm long and 2-5 cm broad, triangular with a rounded base, softly hairy, and with a serrated margin and a petiole up to 5 cm long; they appear superficially similar to those of the Stinging nettle Urtica dioica but do not sting, hence the common name "dead nettle". The flowers are white, produced in whorls ('verticillasters') on the upper part of the stem, the individual flowers 1.5-2.5 cm long.
[edit] Cultivation and uses
The young leaves are edible, and can be used in salads or cooked as a vegetable. The plant also has a number of uses in herbal medicine.
Bees are attracted to the flowers which contain nectar or pollen, hence the plant is sometimes called the Bee Nettle. [1]
It was introduced to North America, where it is widely naturalised.