Lamium album L.

Lamium album, commonly called white nettle or white dead-nettle,^[1] is a flowering plant in the family Lamiaceae, native throughout Europe and Asia, growing in a variety of habitats from open grassland to woodland, generally on moist, fertile soils.

Growth[edit]

Yellow-haired male Bombus lucorum feeding from Lamium album "deadnettle" flowers

It is a herbaceous perennial plant growing to 50-100 cm tall, with green, four-angled stems. The leaves are 3-8 cm long and 2-5 cm broad, triangular with a rounded base, softly hairy, and with a serrated margin and a petiole up to 5 cm long; like many other members of the Lamiaceae, they appear superficially similar to those of the Stinging nettle Urtica dioica but do not sting, hence the common name "deadnettle". The flowers are white, produced in whorls ('verticillasters') on the upper part of the stem, the individual flowers 1.5-2.5 cm long.

Cultivation and uses[edit]

It was introduced to North America, where it is widely naturalised.

The young leaves are edible, and can be used in salads or cooked as a vegetable. The plant is also used in herbal medicine, for example as a dermatological remedy.

Bees, especially bumble bees are attracted to the flowers which are a good source of early nectar and pollen, hence the plant is sometimes called the Bee Nettle.^[2]

Chemistry[edit]

Two phenylpropanoid glycosides, lamalboside (2R-galactosylacteoside) and acteoside, the flavonol p-coumaroylglucoside, tiliroside, 5-caffeoylquinic acid (chlorogenic acid), along with rutoside and quercetin and kaempferol 3-O-glucosides can be isolated from the flowers of L. album.^[3] The plant also contains the iridoid glycosides lamalbid, alboside A and B, and caryoptoside^[4] as well as the hemiterpene glucoside hemialboside.^[5]

In folklore[edit]

A distillation of the flowers is reputed "to make the heart merry, to make a good colour in the face, and to make the vital spirits more fresh and lively."^[6]

Notes[edit]

1. ^ "USDA GRIN Taxonomy". 
2. ^ botanical.com - A Modern Herbal | Nettles
3. ^ Phenylpropanoid esters from Lamium album flowers. Jaromir Budzianowski and Lutoslawa Skrzypczak, Phytochemistry, March 1995, Volume 38, Issue 4, Pages 997–1001, doi:10.1016/0031-9422(94)00727-B
4. ^ Iridoid glucosides from Lamium album. Søren Damtoft, Phytochemistry, January 1992, Volume 31, Issue 1, Pages 175–178, doi:10.1016/0031-9422(91)83030-O
5. ^ Hemialboside, a hemiterpene glucoside from Lamium album. Søren Damtoft and Søren Rosendal Jensen, Phytochemistry, July 1995, Volume 39, Issue 4, Pages 923–924, doi:10.1016/0031-9422(95)00085-L
6. ^ Mrs M. Grieve (1931). "NETTLE, WHITE DEAD". A Modern Herbal. Botanical.com.