Wildflower and Weed: Purple Dead-Nettle Makes Its Annual Appearance

Perhaps you have admired these purple wildflowers growing in swaths along the George Washington Memorial Parkway and other roads in our area.  You may also have cursed them as a persistent weed that crops up in your lawn as a first sign of Spring every year.  On hearing its dangerous-sounding name, you might think this common plant is poisonous or has a sting to it.  Not true.   The purple (or red) dead-nettle (Lamium purpureum), is a member of the mint family and can be used for similar purposes.  There are plenty of sites on the internet that advocate foraging it for your salad, steeping it as a vitamin C-rich tea or even tossing some in your smoothie.  It is unrelated to the stinging nettle which helps in understanding its name.  This nettle is harmless or “dead.”

Dead-nettles were introduced to the U.S.  from Europe. There, they emerge in time for the Feast of the Apparition of St. Michael on May 8th, which explains one of the plant’s common names, purple archangel.  In Northern Virginia, the purple-headed plants show up in late March.  They start low to the ground, telescoping taller as they mature.  They are both delicate and rugged, with tiny violet flowers tucked into textured, spade-shaped leaves.  Some believe that dead nettle “is associated with happiness and cheerfulness” yet also represents fortitude and willpower.  These gifts, however, are short-lived. If the plants survive weeding or mowing efforts, they’ll soon die back as it gets warmer. 

Purple dead-nettles are similar to other plants that are or will be making their appearance in our lawns this Spring.  Two lookalikes are hen-bit (Lamium amplexicaule) and creeping Charlie (Glechoma hederacea).  All three are mint family invasives with red, square stems, and clusters of small flowers.  The leaves of henbit and creeping charlie, however, are more rounded. 

Fans of dead-nettle can likely acquire transplants from eager neighbors, but like dandelion seeds, they are surprisingly available for purchase at Amazon.com.  If you feel that “the only good dead-nettle, is a dead dead-nettle, you have options.  They pull out of the ground easily, but it would be best to remove them before the flowers appear as they are self-sufficient reproducers.  If you must resort to chemicals, herbicide will also work.   I prefer to enjoy their color as I drive down the parkway or sit in my front yard.  Like Spring, the purple dead-nettle will disappear soon enough.