White Dead-nettle, Lamium album

One of the highlights of this cold, late spring has been the profusion of Dead-nettle flowers, first Red (Lamium purpureum) and now White (Lamium album). These may just be common wild flowers – weeds to the less enlightened – but they raise my spirits nonetheless.

I wrote about the Red Dead-nettle back in 2012. The White Dead-nettle, Lamium album, is its perennial cousin: in the same genus (Lamium) and family (Lamiaceae (Note 1)). The Red Dead-nettle is an annual; White Dead-nettle is a hardy perennial which stays green over winter and spreads by seed and by its rhizomatous stolons (rooting stems that run horizontally underground).

The White Dead-nettle is very common in the British Isles, apart from the far north and west of Scotland and western Ireland. It grows in secondary woodland, on hedge-banks and roadsides and disturbed ground, including on the rougher edges of my allotment. Plantlife give it a status of “Green – Least concern”.

White Dead-nettles often grow near human habitation, in the same fertile soils as the Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica). Although they often grow amongst Stinging Nettles and their leaves have a similar shape to Stinging Nettle leaves, White Dead-nettles have lighter green, softer leaves, square stems, a distinctive smell and, crucially, whorls of white flowers with hairy upper hoods and toothed lower lips (note 2). Flowers are produced from March until as late as December, peaking in April and May. The flowers’ anthers are a beautiful black and gold but you have to peer into the flower to see them. They lie side by side like two human figures, Adam and Eve, hence the plant’s alternative name of Adam-and-Eve-in-the-bower. Other English names include Helmet-flower (from the flower shape), Blind Nettle, Dumb Nettle and Deaf Nettle (because of the lack of stings) and White Archangel (note 3).

Lamium album grows right across Eurasia as far east as Japan. The European subspecies is subspecies album and subspecies barbatum is found in the far east of mainland Asia and in Japan. In the British Isles it is considered to be an archaeophyte (introduced by humans prior to 1500).  The BSBI classes it as a denizen: “having the appearance of being native (i.e. fully naturalised) but with some suspicion of having been originally introduced“. It has been introduced to the United States, where it is widely naturalised.

The White Dead-nettle is a good wildlife plant. It is sometimes known as the Bee Nettle as its flowers attract heavier, larger bees, especially Bombus pascuroum, the Common Carder Bee. Hairy-footed Flower Bees (Anthophora plumipes) also visit to collect both pollen (females only) and nectar.

Male Bombus pascuorum on White Dead-nettle. Photo credit: Vanna Bartlett.

A female Hairy-footed Flower Bee, Anthophora plumipes, visiting White Dead-nettle. Photo credit: Vanna Bartlett.

If you live in southern Britain have a look out for the attractive Pied Shieldbug, Tritomegas bicolor, which feeds at the base and on the aerial parts of the plant. We often find it in large numbers of it on our allotment in spring, on Black Horehound (Ballota nigra) and on Red Dead-nettles as well as White.

Pied Shieldbug, Tritomegas bicolor, on White Dead-nettle. Photo credit: Vanna Bartlett.

The Green Tortoise Beetle, Cassida viridis, also feeds on White Dead-nettle and its relatives, as do the caterpillars of several species of moths, including the Burnished Brass and Speckled Yellow. (The “Field Guide to the Caterpillars of Great Britain and Ireland” lists fifteen species of moth whose foodplant is White Deadnettle.)

The leaves and flowers White Dead-nettles are edible and pleasant – don’t be put off by the hairiness of the leaves. I sometimes add a few young leaves to a mixed salad, or nibble at a leaf when I visit the allotment, but there are a lot more possibilities.

Young leaves and stem tips can be boiled and eaten as a vegetable, and the leaves can be cooked like spinach or chopped and added to omelettes. Flowers can be candied or used to make wine. The Eatweeds website has recipes for a White Dead-nettle Frittata and a White Dead-nettle, Feta and Watermelon Salad. The Plants for a Future website recommends adding the leaves to salads and says that “a pleasant herb tea is made from the flowers“. The leaves contain good quantities of vitamins A and C, calcium and phosphorus.

The herbalist Nicholas Culpeper (1616 – 1654) thought that the White Dead-nettle “makes the head merry, drives away melancholy, quickens the spirits, is good against quartan agues, stancheth bleeding at the mouth and nose.” (You can read his full description on The Complete Herbal website.)

The Eatweeds website and Plants For A Future list a number of medicinal uses for White Dead-nettles. These include treatment of menstrual problems such as heavy painful periods, kidney and bladder complaints, and use as a soothing lotion for the eyes or to treat piles and varicose veins. (The usual wise words apply: “Always seek advice from a professional before using a plant medicinally.“) The Eldrum Tree website also suggests some more mystical uses for the plant.

White Dead-nettles are normally so abundant that picking the leaves and flowers from the wild will have no ill effect. They make a pretty and long lasting cut flower (especially if you remove some leaves to reveal the flowers) and an attractive garden plant, though they may come to visit your garden without an invitation and decide to stay.

So far, I have just one plant in a large pot in the back garden as an attractant for bees, but I allow some large patches to grow at the edges of the allotment. Unwanted plants are easy to dig out with a hand fork or, when very established, a garden fork. The plant does well as ground cover in sunshine or light shade, and thrives in full sun on more fertile soils, including light ones like on my allotment.

If you want to grow Lamium album but can’t source it from a fellow gardener, it is possible to buy plug plants from a variety of places, including Naturescape and Landline Wildflowers.

In recent years several scientific papers have explored the biochemical properties of White Dead-nettles. These include “Revealing the reviving secret of the white dead nettle (Lamium album L.)” (note 4) and “A review on biological effects of Lamium album (white dead nettle) and its components” (note 5). Extracts from Lamium album have been shown to have antiviral, antimicrobial, antioxidant, anticancer, cytoprotective, wound healing and antidiabetic effects.

The BGFlora.eu website lists several of the phytochemicals in Lamium album.

The plant was also a favourite source of chlorophyll and other plant pigments for Mikhail Tsvet, (1872 – 1919), the inventor of chromatography.

If you don’t have your own laboratory, simpler pastimes are available.

Flora Britannica records that country children sucked the nectar from the base of the flowers, and that “boys used to pick the flowers off dead nettles and chase the girls pretending they were real stinging nettles” (note 5). Who needs a Playstation?

Notes

Note 1 – I have also written about other members of the Lamiaceae (Mint family), including Water Mint, Ground Ivy, Rosemary, Wild Clary, Balm-leaved Archangel and various Sages (Salvia), including Salvia ‘Hot Lips’. It is one of my favourite families of plants, with 236 genera and around 7000 species worldwide.

Note 2 – A picture paints a thousand words, so as usual I recommend a look at the superb Wild Flower Finder website for photos.

Note 3 – “Archangel” is an alternative name for dead-nettles, possibly given because the plants don’t sting. Another alternative suggestion is that the plants come into flower around the day dedicated to Archangel Michael (8th May in the Roman Catholic church).

Note 4 – Yordanova, Z.P., Zhiponova, M.K., Iakimova, E.T. et al. “Revealing the reviving secret of the white dead nettle (Lamium album L.)”. Phytochem Rev 13, 375–389 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11101-014-9356-2. (Only an abstract is available to the general public.)

Note 5 – Pourmirzaee, T., Abedinzade, M. and Ghorbani, A. “A review on biological effects of Lamium album (white dead nettle) and its components.” Journal of Herbmed Pharmacology 8(3), 185-193 (2019). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334486062_A_review_on_biological_effects_of_Lamium_album_white_dead_nettle_and_its_components. (A PDF is available to download. I wish all scientific papers were as easy to access.)

Note 5 – Richard Mabey (1996): “Flora Britannica“, Sinclair-Stevenson, London. page 314.