Lamium album (white dead-nettle)

Lamium album is common in most of lowland Britain, except for the north and west of Scotland. It is also found in most of Europe, east Turkey, Iran and Iraq, east Russia and from China to Mongolia. It has been introduced into Iceland, North America and New Zealand.

Close up of Lamium album (Image: Wolfgang Stuppy)

The white dead-nettle is a perennial and rhizomatous. The stems are square and often hairy. Leaves are petiolate, with ovate blades and the upper and lower surfaces are hairy. Nutlets are dull brown. Flowers are white or pink, flowering from March to December in Britain.

In the UK, Lamium album is widespread in a number of different habitats, including disturbed ground. There are currently no obvious threats to it.

Lamium album (Image: Wolfgang Stuppy)

Young leaves and flowers from Lamium album can be eaten raw. Young leaves can also be boiled and eaten as a vegetable. Flowers boiled in water can be used as a traditional herbal remedy for catarrh and dropsy, and the roots boiled in wine as a remedy for kidney stones. The plant is also used as a herbal treatment for leucorrhoea, benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) and for gastrointestinal problems. There are several variegated forms which are grown as ornamental herbaceous perennials.

Kew's Millennium Seed Bank partnership aims to save plant life world wide, focusing on plants under threat and those of most use in the future. Seeds are dried, packaged and stored at a sub-zero temperature in our seed bank vault.

Number of seed collections stored in the Millennium Seed Bank: 4
Seed storage behaviour: Orthodox (the seeds of this plant survive being dried without significantly reducing their viability, and are therefore amenable to long-term frozen storage such as at the MSB)
Germination testing: Successful

See our Herbarium specimen image

Information for teachers and kids at the Great Plant Hunt website

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