Lamb’s Ear, Stachys byzantina, is in full flower at the moment in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground in Earlham Cemetery in Norwich.

Lamb’s Ear, Stachys byzantina, in Earlham Cemetery, Norwich.
Stachys byzantina is a spreading perennial and a member of the Deadnettle Family, the Lamiaceae. Although it is mainly grown for its foliage, thick leaves covered in dense grey or silvery-white hairs, its spikes of purplish-pink flowers are lovely too. Many bees agree with me: the flower spikes are often a-buzz with them.
The plants in Earlham Cemetery were being visited by several Buff-tailed Bumblebees (Bombus terrestris), a male Fork-tailed Flower Bee (Anthophora furcata) and, most spectacularly, by a female Wool Carder Bee (Anthidium manicatum).
The Wool Carder Bee is one of our largest solitary bees. Both sexes have a distinctive row of yellow spots or bars on the abdomen.
The male is larger than the female and is fiercely territorial. He has a row of spines at the end of his abdomen, which he uses to attack other insects that fly into his territory. The female collects pollen on the underside of her abdomen in a stiff brush of rearward pointing hairs. She is an excellent pollinator of a range of garden and wild flowers and is particularly fond of Tufted Vetch, Vicia cracca. She gathers hairs from plant leaves to line her nest, which is made in dead wood, a hollow plant stem or a hollow bamboo cane. Stachys byzantina provides just the right sort of hairs.

Wool Carder Bee, Anthidium manicatum, on Stachys byzantina.
Stachys byzantina‘s hairy leaves are very tactile and popular with children of all ages, as well as featuring in sensory gardens, where it grows best in full sun and light soil. It is ideally suited to a gravel garden. (Several websites suggest other grey-leaved plants for this kind of situation: see for example “Silver Herbs: Planning A Moon Garden” by Sandra Henry and the RHS article “10 award winning silver-leaved annuals and perennials“. I tend to refer to my copy of Nicola Ferguson’s book “Right Plant, Right Place“.)
The plant is a native of Turkey, Armenia and Iran, and the grey hairy leaves help the plant cope with drought and strong sunlight: the hairs capture moisture and the grey foliage reflects the sun’s rays. The plant is very hardy too, though the leaves can die back in cold, damp winters.
English names for Stachys byzantina include Lamb’s Ear, Woolly Hedgenettle, Woolly Woundwort and Bear’s Ear, all referring to the heavily felted leaves. Older scientific names for the plant include Stachys lanata and Stachys olympica.
There are several garden cultivars, including the larger-leaved “Big Ears”, which has leaves that are less hairy. The variety “Silver Carpet” is smaller and neater and rarely flowers – to my mind it is rather boring. Removing the flower spikes will prolong the life of the plant, though I would personally prefer a few glorious years to a longer lived but less interesting garden plant. Splitting up the plant in spring will also help to keep it going.
Stachys byzantina has been cultivated in the British Isles since 1782 and it has been found in the wild here since 1858, as a garden escape, on the site of a former garden or where it has been thrown out. It sometimes persists for years on waste ground. “A Flora Of Norfolk” calls it “an occasional escape” and records it from the Norwich area in 1990.
I haven’t eaten Stachys byzantina but the “Our Permaculture Life” website says that the leaves are edible and that young leaves can be eaten in a salad. The deep-fried, battered leaves are known as “lambari” in Brazil and recipes for these can be found on the come-se website and on this You Tube video (an understanding of Portuguese would be useful).
Stachys byzantina may find uses in modern medicine too. S. byzantina and its close relatives contain a range of flavonoids and other compounds whose properties are currently being investigated. One study (Jamshidi et. al., 2011) found that Stachys byzantina extracts may have antimicrobial activity against vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. Other studies revealed by a quick online search include Jassbi et. al. 2014, Sytar et. al. 2016 and Saeedi et. al. 2008. There are probably a lot more.
Both photographs are by Vanna Bartlett.