Purple Dead Nettle 1
The Fuzzy Edge
Moving on to more spring weeds that are popping. We’ll wind back to more details about shepherd’s purse, after you’re able to find more of the free food of spring.
Lots of people are high on detoxing in the spring, and are willing to tolerate some severe gastro-intestinal eruptions in order to feel cleansed. At Weedom, we are not fans of explosive purging. Think about using a little of nature’s bottle brush to gently work on the intestinal environment. This is the job of your spring greens, as well as providing the vitamins and minerals you might be missing .
This week’s green has hair. It might be the fuzziest thing you eat, unless you like to do your kiwi fruit with the peel still on it. Purple dead nettle is sort of a dumb name that this weed can’t outgrow. It’s a mint, not a nettle, and the name comes from the fact that it’s hairs don’t sting, in contrast those of the stinging nettle, which people also cook and eat in the spring. You might like the name Lamium purpureum better, or the old name, purple archangel. Though it has a square stem, like those in the mint family (Laminaceae), it doesn’t have a characteristic strong aromatic smell, but rather a grassy scent. Chewing a young tip, while writing, so as to produce the best description of the taste, it hits the sweet tastebuds as well as the bitter ones, and is just a little salty. The flavor is a bit like spinach, + mild grass, and sweet at the same time, and that whole range of flavor remains in the aftertaste. Expect a more bitter and a less sweet taste after the weed has matured, like most greens.
There are three greens of spring that need to be distinguished one from the other. At Weedom, in zone 6 of the Midwest U.S. , purple dead nettle becomes apparent first, right along with the chickweed. In a month you need to be sure whether it’s the dead nettle, or henbit (Lamium amplexicaule) or ground ivy, (Glechoma hederacea.) We don’t have to ‘reinvent the wheel’ today, because Angelyn, at Identify that Plant, already did the work. Look at her pics all in one place, and you will know your 3 weeds. (In a while, all of our own pics will do the same job for you.) What’s great is that you won’t poison yourself if you make an error, but taste-wise, there’s a difference.
What to look for in your purple dead nettle are spade to heart shaped leaves on little stalks (petioles) coming out of a green to purple square shaped stem. The leaves are alternate, and the next set appears perpendicularly, (east-west, north-south, ) in a repeating pattern for the whole length. (That pattern of leaves emerging from the square stem is the classic mint family characteristic. ) When the plant young, or if it’s shaded or crowded, it will stay green. A couple of months from now, the purple dead nettle will show its classic purple to reddish leaves at the top of the plant. Purply pink, tubular flowers emerge from the stems amid the leaves. The cuplike calyx beneath the flower has 5 projections (sepals). The opening of the flower has a hooded lobe above, and a 2 lobed lip below, with small pointed projections emerging from each side. A pod from the flower holds 4 seeds, each of which is capped with an elaiasome which Julia Blankespoor, at Chestnut Herbs, reports is attractive to ants, and might aid significantly in seed dispersal. Leaves are heart to spade shaped, with serrated edges, and palmate venation. They vary in size from a half to 2 inches or more long, depending on growing conditions. Purple dead nettle is an annual weed, propagating entirely by seed.
Medicinal use of this weed has been reported in older herbals, but modern research into the constituents is not extensive. Various reported medicinal uses are as an astringent styptic/hemostatic, to slow bleeding, diuretic, laxative, anti-allergy, antibacterial, antifungal, and diaphoretic (induces sweating). Lamium album, the most studied species, showed stronger hemostatic activity than Lamium purpureum when orally administered in a preventative regimen to Wistar rats, though both reduced bleeding time compared to controls.
Lamium purpureum ethanolic extract showed some insecticidal activity (apparently species specific) against the red flour beetle in a dose dependent way.
Purple dead nettle weighed in as ‘moderate’ on the antioxidant scale, with the ethanolic or methanolic extract shown to be more efficient than less polar solvents at extracting this activity, and it corresponds to the flavonoid class of polyphenolic compounds.
A number of herbalists tout the anti-allergy effects of purple dead nettle, (as well as stinging nettle), and suggest that drinking infusions of either herb, prior and during the allergy season, may mitigate symptoms. Flavonoids such as quercetin might be credited with this activity.
Antimicrobial activity can be attributed to the essential oil constituents, of which the flowering portions give a rather low yield, between 0.3 and 0.01 percent, and about a third of this is germacrene D. Other major constituents are α-pinene, β-pinene, ocimene, and β-elemene.
As food, purple dead nettles are credited as a supplier of vitamin C, A, K, and iron and, of course fiber. It can be eaten raw, when young, added to a salad or hidden in the tacos and burritos. It can be added to stir fry, fritters, omelets, or the flowering tops can be coated with tempura batter and fried. Like most of the plants that have some medicinal action, don’t eat it by the bale. Mixing it with other greens is what happens at Weedom. Smoothie drinkers can drop some of this in the mix in place of spinach, etc. This weed has been credited as both antidiarrheal and mild laxative, the latter effect being more likely by drinking large amounts of the tea.
FUN
Look at that comment button below. Go ahead and punch it. Comments, suggestions, Additions? Make us smarter.
After the hour of power linked in the last post, We felt the pull to offer you a short clip of our very own spring peepers singing. We think it’s the cure for cabin fever.
We’re always selling the idea of gardening as a health measure, because it feels soooo good to get outside, and be with the growing things. Grow plants in containers if you don’t have land. Georgi Boorman, at The Federalist, announced that her new gardening habit made her feel good enough to wean off of the Wellbutrin (buproprion = antidepressant). Cooool. Less biz for Big Pharma. Plus we get happier when people are feeling better.
Where We Dig
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2. Uwineza PA, Gramza-Michałowska A, Bryła M, Waśkiewicz A. Antioxidant Activity and Bioactive Compounds of Lamium album Flower Extracts Obtained by Supercritical Fluid Extraction. Applied Sciences. 2021;11(16):7419. doi:10.3390/app11167419
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6. Cornelia. Dead Nettle, an Overlooked yet Valuable Wild Edible. Eat The Planet. Published June 14, 2019. Accessed February 27, 2023. https://eattheplanet.org/dead-nettle-an-overlooked-yet-valuable-wild-edible/
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8. Grujić S, Savković Ž, Ristić M, et al. Glandular trichomes, essential oil composition, anti-aspergillus and antioxidative activities of Lamium purpureum L. ethanolic extracts. Archives of Biological Sciences. 2020;72:253-263. doi:10.2298/ABS200117019G
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10. How to Make Purple Dead Nettle Salve (3 recipes). Accessed February 27, 2023. https://thenerdyfarmwife.com/purple-dead-nettle-salve/
11. Akkol EK, Yalçin FN, Kaya D, Caliş I, Yesilada E, Ersöz T. In vivo anti-inflammatory and antinociceptive actions of some Lamium species. J Ethnopharmacol. 2008;118(1):166-172. doi:10.1016/j.jep.2008.04.001
12. A. M. Abdullahi, Z. Tukur. Insecticidal Activity of Leaves Extracts of Lamium purpureum (Lamiaceae) against Red Flour Beetle Tribolium castaneum (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae). Annals of Experimental Biology. 2016;4(3):1-5.
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14. Lamium purpureum (Dead Nettle, Purple Archangel, Purple Dead Nettle, Purple Dead-nettle, Red Dead Nettle, Red Dead-nettle, Red Dead-nettle,, Velikdenche) | North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox. Accessed February 27, 2023. https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/lamium-purpureum/
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20. Three (easily mixed up) early spring plants | Identify that Plant. Accessed February 26, 2023. http://identifythatplant.com/three-easily-mixed-up-early-spring-plants/
21. Wildcrafting Purple Dead Nettle For Food And Medicine - The Outdoor Apothecary. Accessed February 26, 2023. https://www.outdoorapothecary.com/purple-dead-nettle/