Every winter, there comes a point where you bundle up tightly, head outdoors, and it hits you, right in the face – that little whiff of spring.
Instead of bitter cold, the wind feels a tad warmer.
The sky is lighter.
And is that birdsong you hear?
It’s at this time when you feel that maybe, just maybe, winter won’t last forever. And before you know it, spring is here, bringing with it a whole cornucopia of wild food to eat.
Spring is one of my favorite times of year to forage. After all of the white and gray and cold, we’re suddenly surrounded by growing things. The green of it all almost hurts your eyes.
It’s time to get out and pick purple dead nettle.
For most folks, this humble-looking plant is nothing more than a plant growing in their yard. But it’s so much more than a pretty weed. Lamium purpureum is a handy plant to have around for eating and folk remedies.
Purple dead nettle isn’t native to the States; its natural habitat is Eurasia. It’s naturalized over the decades. You can find it in nearly every part of the united states. And I’ll bet after you finish reading this article you’ll start seeing it everywhere.
It goes by many names – dead nettle, red dead nettle and purple archangel.
Purple dead nettle is a bit of a mixed-up plant. It earned its name, dead nettle, because the leaves are similar to stinging nettle. However, because there are no stinging trichomes on the leaves, it’s considered ‘dead’. To top it all off, it’s not even a true nettle (Urticaceae family) – it’s a mint.
Be Responsible
Before we go any further, please be responsible and always ask your physician before trying any new herbal remedies, especially if you’re pregnant, nursing or immunocompromised.
And don’t be that guy that gives foragers a bad name. Ask permission before picking on someone’s property. Only take what you need and be mindful of the wild creatures who rely on it for food. There’s enough for everyone.
If you’re new to eating the weeds, this is a great plant to start with. Here are 12 reasons you should pick purple dead nettle.
1. Purple Dead Nettle is Easy to Identify
Many people are intimidated by eating wild food because they’re nervous about ID’ing plants incorrectly.
Which is good, as that’s always a serious consideration.
However, purple dead nettle is one of the easiest plants to identify.
In fact, you probably already know it by sight, even if you don’t know the name.
You probably saw the picture at the top and said, “Oh yeah, I know what that is.”
Purple dead nettle is a member of the mint family. It has heart-shaped or spade-shaped leaves with a square stem. Towards the top of the plant, the leaves take on a purple-ish hue, hence its name. As the plant matures, tiny, elongated purple-pink flowers will develop.
2. Purple Dead Nettle Has No Dangerous Look-Alikes
Purple dead nettle doesn’t have any poisonous look-alikes. While it’s often confused with henbit, that’s okay, because henbit is also an edible weed. Because of this, purple dead nettle is the perfect plant to start you on your foraging journey.
And just in case you’re curious…
How to Tell Purple Dead Nettle from Henbit
Purple dead nettle and henbit are both of the mint family, and they have that easy-to-identify square stem. To tell them apart, look at the leaves.
Purple dead nettle has leaves that grow from the top of the stem down, in an almost cone shape. The leaves grow in matching pairs, one on each side of the plant, so you end up with leaves growing in columns down all four sides of the square stem.
The leaves often have a purple blush to them. And the edges of the heart-shaped leaves are saw-toothed.
Henbit has leaves that grow in a cluster around the stem, then a length of bare stem, then another cluster, and so on. The leaves of henbit have scalloped edges and a circular appearance.
3. You Can Find Purple Dead Nettle Everywhere
I can guarantee you’ve seen it before, even if you didn’t know what it was. And once you’re familiar with it, you will see it everywhere you go.
It’s growing in the ditch alongside the road. It’s the giant swathes of dusky purple you see in cornfields, where it grows before the corn is planted. It grows at the edges of your lawn. It grows in patches on the edge of the woods. It’s probably growing in your garden, much to your chagrin.
It loves disturbed land, so check in fields or where the brush was cleared in the previous season.
This wild edible grows nearly everywhere as it’s not picky when it comes to sunlight – it grows in full sun and even shade. And purple dead nettle loves moist soil.
4. Purple Dead Nettle is More Important for Bees than Dandelions
Long before I find my first morel of the season, I’m sipping fresh purple dead nettle tea. This is one of the first wild edibles to make an appearance each spring. And if you live in a climate with mild winters, you may even see it in the winter too.
Because it’s one of the first plants on the scene, it’s an important food for native pollinators and honeybees.
There’s often a lot of noise on social media every spring asking people not to over-pick the dandelions and save them for the bees. We’ve already discussed why you don’t have to save the dandelions for the bees.
You’ll often see it buzzing with bees. Thankfully, there is plenty of it to go around. Purple dead nettle has a way of popping up everywhere, especially in commercial crop fields before they are planted. One of the best things you can do for pollinators in the spring is to hold off on mowing your lawn for a while.
Letting this beautiful plant grow as pollinators emerge after a long winter is an easy way to help with the pollinator crisis.
