🌿 White and Purple Dead-Nettle

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Two small plants with square stems typical of Lamiaceae, often called "dead-nettles" because their leaves mimic the stinging nettle's toothed shape, but WITHOUT any stinging hairs. White dead-nettle has large, opposite, toothed leaves and prominent white flowers in whorls at the upper leaf axils. Red dead-nettle is smaller, with reddish-purple tinged upper leaves and more subtle pink-purple flowers.

1. square stem, soft to the touch, NEVER with stinging hairs (unlike stinging nettle)
2. opposite toothed leaves mimicking the shape of stinging nettle
3. white (white dead-nettle) or pink-purple (red dead-nettle) flowers in whorls at the leaf axils
4. red dead-nettle: upper leaves often tinged with red-purple
5. subtle, pleasant smell when crushed

🍽️ Eating it

Preparation : raw leaves in salads (mild, without the cooking required for nettles) or cooked like mild spinach; raw flowers as garnish, slightly sweet from nectar

💊 Healing with it

white dead-nettle is traditionally used for mild gynecological issues (leukorrhea) and as a mild astringent; properties are less documented than those of stinging nettle

Level of evidence : traditional use — ethnobotanical compilations (Fournier, PFAF)

⚠️ no major known contraindications at food-level doses

🪓 Other bushcraft uses

• dead-nettle flowers are rich in nectar, loved by short-tongued bumblebees that pierce the base of the corolla to reach it without going through the main opening