RED HEMP-NETTLE

Galeopsis angustifolia

Mint / Dead-Nettle Family [Lamiaceae]

month8jul month8july month8aug month8sep month8sept

status
statusZarchaeophyte
flower
flower8bicolour
flower
flower8mauve flower8red flower8pink
inner
inner8white
inner
inner8orange inner8yellow
morph
morph8zygo
petals
petalsZ2
stem
stem8square
rarity
rarityZuncommon

1st Aug 2013, coastal shingle, Pagham, West Sussex. Photo: © Dawn Nelson
Grows up to 60cm high. Usually has more flowers on than those on show, perhaps in a summit whorl and a lower whorl. Any side branches will also sprout a whorl of flowers atop each.


1st Aug 2013, coastal shingle, Pagham, West Sussex. Photo: © Dawn Nelson
Side branches usually occur in opposite pairs, but see those near the ground which are in singles.


1st Aug 2013, coastal shingle, Pagham, West Sussex. Photo: © Dawn Nelson
Flowers mauve coloured with white or white with pale-yellow markings. This specimen on a shingle beach.


2nd Aug 2005, VC12, Southern England. Photo: (CC by 2.0) Geoff Toone
The side-branches are opposite and emerge at nearly 90° to the main stem curving slightly upwards. There are usually a pair of opposing leaves just beneath any branchings, the leaves being linear-lanceolate to narrow-ovate.


4th Aug 2005, Micheldever, Hampshire. Photo: (CC by 2.0) Geoff Toone
This specimen on bare ground, but it doesn't look like shingle, nor extinct-railway ballast.


22nd Aug 2010, Streatley, Berkshire. Photo: (CC by 2.0) Renee Grayer
The leaf veins, from above, are deeply indented, but few in number.


29th July 2013, Old Winchester Hill, Hampshire. Photo: © Dawn Nelson
Leaves narrow and sparsely toothed to align with indented veins, which are few. The plant is covered in fine soft downy hairs.


29th July 2013, Old Winchester Hill, Hampshire. Photo: © Dawn Nelson
Atop is a flower head whorl with only one flower yet to pop out and open, the rest gone. A second whorl below has but two flowers still there, the rest gone.


29th July 2013, Old Winchester Hill, Hampshire. Photo: © Dawn Nelson
Stem square and downy and scarcely swollen at the nodes. White markings centred about centre-line. Striations on the sides and in the throat. Flower consists of an upper hood and a lower lip which has three wide lobes, the lobes largely devoid of markings.


29th July 2013, Old Winchester Hill, Hampshire. Photo: © Dawn Nelson
Like all Hemp-nettles, it has an extended gradually flaring flower tube from which the two lips suddenly emerge. Flower tube soft downy hairy too.


29th July 2013, Old Winchester Hill, Hampshire. Photo: © Dawn Nelson
Leaves in yellowish-green and opposite pairs, lower pairs very narrow with only one vein.


4th Aug 2005, Micheldever, Hampshire. Photo: (CC by 2.0) Geoff Toone
A sepal cup in the foreground with 3 visible seeds within it (there are probably 4 within it); the flowers of most of the sepal cups having departed. The corolla of the flowers are between 14 to 25mm long and reddish pink, only rarely are they white.


29th July 2013, Old Winchester Hill, Hampshire. Photo: © Dawn Nelson
Sepal tubes (aka calyx) are between 8 to 13mm long, green and have five narrow tapered teeth with reddish tips and fawn-coloured points. Here the sepal tubes are all bereft of flowers, leaving behind 4 seeds within those that have been fertilised. The seeds develop near the bottom of the sepal tubes.


Not to be semantically confused with : Hemp (Cannabis sativa) [a plant with similar name belonging to a differing family] nor with Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica) [which is in the sane family but a differing Genera]

Some similarities to : Woundworts such as Field Woundwort (Stachys arvensis) or Marsh Woundwort (Stachys palustris) and to Betony (Betonica officinalis), but the flowers of Hemp-nettles have an extended tube and poke far out from the sepal tubes.

The leaves are yellowish-green and narrower than other Hemp-nettles. Only this and Downy Hemp-nettle (Geleopsis segetum) have soft downy hairs rather than stiff bristles.

Prefers a calcareous soil. Found on arable farmland, but also on sand and shingle by the sea, or between the ballast on old railway lines. It is rapidly decreasing both in numbers and in the number of hectads in which it is found and is now on the critically endangered list. Was once found widely in the 1980's in the southern part of England, but the second cultivation of arable land in autumn (before the plant has even set seed) and weed-killers have now taken their toll.


  Galeopsis angustifolia  ⇐ Global Aspect ⇒ Lamiaceae  

Distribution
 family8Mint / Dead-Nettle family8Lamiaceae
 BSBI maps
genus8Galeopsis
Galeopsis
(Hemp-Nettles)

RED HEMP-NETTLE

Galeopsis angustifolia

Mint / Dead-Nettle Family [Lamiaceae]