Lamium is a genus of about 40-50 species of flowering plant

Flowering plant

The flowering plants , also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants. Angiosperms are seed-producing plants like the gymnosperms and can be distinguished from the gymnosperms by a series of synapomorphies...

s in the family Lamiaceae

Lamiaceae

The mints, taxonomically known as Lamiaceae or Labiatae, are a family of flowering plants. They have traditionally been considered closely related to Verbenaceae, but in the 1990s, phylogenetic studies suggested that many genera classified in Verbenaceae belong instead in Lamiaceae...

, of which family it is the type genus. They are all herbaceous

Herbaceous

A herbaceous plant is a plant that has leaves and stems that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level. They have no persistent woody stem above ground...

 plants native to Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

, and north Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

, but several have become very successful weed

Weed

A weed in a general sense is a plant that is considered by the user of the term to be a nuisance, and normally applied to unwanted plants in human-controlled settings, especially farm fields and gardens, but also lawns, parks, woods, and other areas. More specifically, the term is often used to...

s of crop

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

 fields and are now widely naturalised

Naturalisation (biology)

In biology, naturalisation is any process by which a non-native organism spreads into the wild and its reproduction is sufficient to maintain its population. Such populations are said to be naturalised....

 across the temperate world.

The genus includes both annual

Annual plant

An annual plant is a plant that usually germinates, flowers, and dies in a year or season. True annuals will only live longer than a year if they are prevented from setting seed...

 and perennial

Perennial plant

A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...

 species; they spread by both seed

Seed

A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...

s and stems rooting as they grow along the ground.

The common name refers to their superficial resemblance

Batesian mimicry

Batesian mimicry is a form of mimicry typified by a situation where a harmless species has evolved to imitate the warning signals of a harmful species directed at a common predator...

 to the unrelated stinging nettles

Nettle

Nettles constitute between 24 and 39 species of flowering plants of the genus Urtica in the family Urticaceae, with a cosmopolitan though mainly temperate distribution. They are mostly herbaceous perennial plants, but some are annual and a few are shrubby...

, but unlike those, they do not have stinging hairs and so are harmless or apparently "dead".

Selected species

• Lamium album
  Lamium album
  Lamium album is a flowering plant in the family Lamiaceae, native throughout Europe and Western Asia, growing in a variety of habitats from open grassland to woodland, generally on moist, fertile soils.-Growth:...
  
  (white deadnettle)
• Lamium amplexicaule
  Lamium amplexicaule
  Lamium amplexicaule is a species of Lamium native to Europe, western Asia and northern Africa....
  
  (henbit deadnettle)
• Lamium bifidum
• Lamium barbatum
• Lamium corsicum
• Lamium flexuosum
• Lamium garganicum
• Lamium glaberrimum
• Lamiastrum galeobdolon (yellow archangel),
• Lamium hybridum (cut-leaf deadnettle)
• Lamium maculatum
  Lamium maculatum
  Lamium maculatum is a flowering plant in the family Lamiaceae.-Description:...
  
  (spotted white deadnettle, purple dragon)
• Lamium moluccellifolium (northern deadnettle)
• Lamium moschatum
• Lamium orvala
  Lamium orvala
  Lamium orvala is a species of flowering plants in the family Lamiaceae, native to Europe.- References :* *...
  
  
• Lamium purpureum (red deadnettle)

Several closely related genera were formerly included in Lamium by some botanists, including Galeopsis (hemp-nettles) and Leonurus

Leonurus

Leonurus is a genus of flowering plants in the family Lamiaceae.Leonurus japonicus is one of the 50 fundamental herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine...

(motherworts).

Lamium species are used as food plants by the larva

Larva

A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...

e of some Lepidoptera

Lepidoptera

Lepidoptera is a large order of insects that includes moths and butterflies . It is one of the most widespread and widely recognizable insect orders in the world, encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterflies, skipper butterflies, and moth-butterflies...

 species including Angle Shades

Angle Shades

The Angle Shades is a moth of the family Noctuidae. It is a common and familiar European species and is often strongly migratory....

, Setaceous Hebrew Character

Setaceous Hebrew Character

The Setaceous Hebrew Character is a moth of the family Noctuidae. It is found in the Palearctic ecozone. It is a common species throughout Europe. It is also found in North America, from coast to coast across Canada and the northern United States to western Alaska. It occurs in the Rocky Mountains...

 and the Coleophora

Coleophora

Coleophora is a very large genus of moths of the family Coleophoridae. It contains some 1,350 described species. The genus is represented on all continents, but the majority are found in the Nearctic and Palaearctic regions...

case-bearers C. ballotella, C. lineolea and C. ochripennella.

Cultivation

Lamiums are frost hardy and grow well in most soils. Flower colour determines planting season and light requirement: white- and purple-coloured flowered species are planted in spring and prefer full sun. The yellow-flowered ones are planted in fall (autumn) and prefer shade. They often have invasive

Invasive species

"Invasive species", or invasive exotics, is a nomenclature term and categorization phrase used for flora and fauna, and for specific restoration-preservation processes in native habitats, with several definitions....

habits and need plenty of room. Propagate from seed or by division in early spring.