With fairy shoes in every flower

‘The plant “makes the heart merry, drives away melancholy, quickens the spirits...” ’

CROUCHING along hedgerows, field margins, grass verges, in disturbed soil and on waste ground, it barely catches the eye. Its modest flowers, although among the earliest to appear and the last to quit the year, cannot compete for attention either in colour or display with bolder and brighter springtime blooms. It is no more than a wayside weed and its very name seems to condemn it: deadnettle.

However, names are deceptive and this unassuming plant is not even a nettle—it’s a herb, a member of family that includes mints, lavender, rosemary, sage and basil. Its misnomer derives from the jagged leaf shape, which it probably developed to dissuade grazing animals and leaf-eating insects by mimicking the botanically unrelated stinging nettle.