Musings

Friday, April 24, 2015

White dead-nettle

The white dead-nettle, Lamium album,  is just coming into flower. It often grows amongst stinging nettles (as in this case) and even when it doesn't, does such a good job of impersonation that few can be persuaded to touch the plant before the heroic botanist.
Grigson tells us one of the local names is Adam-and-Eve-in-the-Bower: if you invert the flower the black and gold stamens lie side-by-side like two human figures.
I must check this out next time I come across it.
This was in Rackham Woods on the edge of Amberley Brooks where I spent a very pleasant but futile afternoon seeking out the lesser-spotted woodpecker before it becomes extinct in Sussex.

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