May 2, 2017

Yellow Dead-nettle


This picture is taken at the end of winter. Yes, Snowdrops were still in flower. And there were also some rather elegant reddish leaves.




What did become of them?


See here.





Now they brighten up this somewhat sombre woodland. The Yellow Dead-nettle (Lamium galeobdolon subs. montanum) made a lot of new green sprouts and now it is in full bloom. It likes a soil rich in humus, like here under the Hornbeams of a little wooded valley, not far from a stream. If it finds the right circumstances it is a good ground-cover plant, its creeping stalks can cover quite a surface.







The verticillate flowers are yellow, the upper lip clear yellow and the lower lip spotted with darker yellow.