musty mint smelling weed w/ mousy purple flowers

[watermelonpunch]

Still finding this ...



Northeastern Pennsylvania
residential neighborhood in city
zone 6a/5b

The blooms are tiny gray-purple... I'd call them a bright but mousy purple at their peak.

It's the gloomiest weed I've ever seen!!!!

Looks so maudlin.

It smells really quite disgusting.

Like someone left a pack of wintergreen gum in a wet jacket pocket & then put it in mostly closed plastic bag & left it for a few weeks. LOL

It smells to me like a musty version of creeping charlie... if that makes sense.

SO I'm assuming it may be related... something mint?

Cropped up some weeks ago. Seemed to be strong around May 1st

Completely filled my neighbor's 10x10 vegetable plot solid.
And in all my flowerbeds on that side of the yard.

I do NOT remember seeing this at all last year.
If it was present at all, it was much less.

Oh, and like creeping charlie - it invaded the grass in sparse more heavily shaded areas of the lawn.

[applestar]

You are going to LOVE this: Dead Nettle
.
.
.

It's not that bad as weeds go -- very fragile and easy to pull, decomposes quickly, blossoms are attractive to nectar gatherers, and they usually self destruct when it gets hot, most of the time turning yellow with mildew.

[RamonaGS]

That would explain the smell, LOL!

[rainbowgardener]

Very common lawn weed. I've usually called it purple dead nettle. The dead just refers to the fact that it doesn't sting like regular nettle.

It is in the mint family and if you are inclined that way is edible.


The flower, leaves and stems are edible but most prefer to eat the younger leaves raw. These plants are said to be as nutritious as spinach, high in iron, vitamins and fiber. Research shows that the purple deadnettle’s seeds are high in antioxidants.

http://beforeitsnews.com/survival/2013/ ... 69748.html

[watermelonpunch]

You are going to LOVE this: Dead Nettle

LOL Very very appropriate!!!!
It really is macabre!!!
It just has this creepy sad kind of look to it. And smelling old & mildewy certainly doesn't help that. ha ha

It is in the mint family and if you are inclined that way is edible.

I'm not a huge big fan of mint flavours.

The self-destruct when hot thing would explain why I didn't see it last year. It got very warm, abruptly and early last spring.

Perhaps the cool weather for a few days this week made it re-surge again this weekend. I'd thought I'd gotten rid of it all. But found more of it yesterday in places I thought I'd already gotten rid of it all.

But yeah I mean it's a dream weed compared to creeping charlie. I just meant I saw some similarities.

And now I see this purple dead nettle is called Lamium purpurea.

Is purpurea just referring to the colour?

Now what relation does it have to this stuff that's called Lamium, and I quite like and does not smell bad?

[rainbowgardener]

They are very closely related, in the same Lamium genus. The garden lamium that is sold commercially is sometimes called large dead-nettle or spotted nettle.