CROUCHING along hedgerows, field margins, grass verges, in disturbed soil and on waste ground, it barely catches the eye. Its modest flowers, although among the earliest to appear and the last to quit the year, cannot compete for attention either in colour or display with bolder and brighter springtime blooms. It is no more than a wayside weed and its very name seems to condemn it: deadnettle.
However, names are deceptive and this unassuming plant is not even a nettle—it’s a herb, a member of the Lamiaceae family that includes mints, lavender, rosemary, sage and basil. Its misnomer derives from the jagged leaf shape, which it probably developed to dissuade grazing animals and leaf-eating insects by mimicking the botanically unrelated stinging nettle.
As do so many wild plants that are now overlooked, the deadnettle has history. The first of this species to flower, Lamium purpureum, presents its modest mauve bloom clusters and purplish leaves as early as February and remains until November. Its slightly more prominent relative L. album, with white flowers and green foliage, follows in March and lasts until December—and it is this variety that commands the bigger reputation. In the distant days when Christian festivals punctuated the rural year, it was known as ‘white archangel’ because it was traditionally observed around May 8, the Feast of the Apparition, the day the Catholic church dedicated to the Archangel Michael to commemorate his reported 5th-century appearance on Mount Gargano, in southern Italy. Alternative local names included ‘blind’, ‘dumb’ or ‘dead’ nettle—not a condemnation, but a celebration of its innocuous nature— and ‘sweet nettle’, which came from the practice, common among rural children, of sucking the flowers for their nectar.
この記事は Country Life UK の June 08, 2022 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Country Life UK の June 08, 2022 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Don't rain on Venus's parade
TENNIS has never been sexier—at least, that is what multiple critics of the new film Challengers are saying.
A rural reason to cheer
THERE was something particularly special for country people when one of the prestigious King’s Awards for Voluntary Service was presented last week.
My heart is in the Highlands
A LISTAIR MOFFAT’S many books on Scottish history are distinctive for the way he weaves poetry and literature, language and personal experience into broad-sweeping studies of particular regions or themes. In his latest— and among his most ambitious in scope—he juxtaposes a passage from MacMhaighstir Alasdair’s great sea poem Birlinn Chlann Raghnaill with his own account of filming a replica birlinn (Hebridean galley) as it glides into the Sound of Mull, ‘larch strakes swept up to a high prow’, saffron sail billowing, water sparkling as its oars dip and splash. Familiar from medieval tomb carvings, the birlinn is a potent symbol of the power of the Lords of the Isles.
Put it in print
Three sales furnished with the ever-rarer paper catalogues featured intriguing lots, including a North Carolina map by John Ogilby and a wine glass gibbeting Admiral Byng, the unfortunate scapegoat for the British loss of Minorca
The rake's progress
Good looks, a flair for the theatrical and an excellent marriage made John Astley’s fortune, but also swayed ‘le Titien Anglois’ away from painting into a dissolute life of wine and women, with some collecting on the side
Charter me this
There’s a whole world out there waiting to be explored and one of the most exciting ways to see it is from the water, says Emma Love, who rounds up the best boat charters
Hey ho, hey ho, it's off to sow we go
JUNE can be a tricky month for the gardener.
Floreat Etona
The link with the school and horticulture goes back to its royal founder, finds George Plumptre on a visit to the recently restored gardens
All in good time
Two decades in the planning, The Emory, designed by Sir Richard Rogers, is open. Think of it as a sieve that retains the best of contemporary hotel-keeping and lets the empty banality flow away
Come on down, the water's fine
Ratty might have preferred a picnic, but canalside fine dining is proving the key to success for new restaurant openings in east London today, finds Gilly Hopper