Transformational Gardening

Purple Deadnettle (Red Henbit) (Lamium purpureum): Images

Date Location Notes Images
April 7, 2012 Southeastern, New Hampshire At first I thought this was a huge plot of Ground Ivy (Glechoma hederacea). It has a similar look. But Ground Ivy grows closer to the ground and roots at the nodes while Lamium species do not. Purple Deadnettle has a purple flower with a hairy, curved hood/lip at the top and two lobes at the bottom. Ground Ivy has a bluish-purple flower with no hood at the top, a big and slightly split lobe at the bottom middle and two smaller lobes on each side of the bottom lobe.

There are other Lamium species in New Hampshire:
  • Common Henbit (Lamium amplexicaule): Leaves are less triangular and more heart-shaped. Less densely-bunched leaves on the stem. Upper leaves and bracts are sessile and clasping (while all of the upper leaves on Purple Deadnettle are petiolate). Pointy calyx lobes at the bottom of the flower tube are straight (while the calyx lobes on Purple Deadnettle are spreading).
  • Spotted Henbit (Lamium maculatum): Leaf blades commonly have a white blotch bordering each side of the midrib. Terminal tooth on upper leaf blades are usually blunt or rounded. Flower longer than that of Purple Deadnettle with a much bigger and longer hood/lip at the top of the flower.
Date Location Notes Images
May 6, 2014 Southeastern, Connecticut