Lamium amplexicaule L.
henbit
Annual herb with hairy or nearly glabrous, ± erect stems to c. 30 cm, but often < 5 cm high in dry situations. Petioles long and slender. Lamina 5-20 × 5-20 mm, ovate or oblong-ovate, crenate, sometimes more deeply cut, sparsely to moderately clothed in usually ± appressed hairs; base broad-cuneate, truncate to cordate. Bracts to c. 2.5 × 2 cm, very broadly ovate, hairy; base cordate, amplexicaul. Calyx 5-7 mm long, with ± silky tomentum; teeth linear-subulate, c. = tube. Corolla c. 15 mm long, pinkish purple; tube erect, narrow, long-exserted, glabrous inside; upper lip 3-5 mm long, tomentose outside, with 3 purple blotches inside; lateral lobes of lower lip 0 (sometimes fls cleistogamous and corolla remaining closed and included in calyx). Nutlets 1.8-2.2 mm long, patterned white, sharply angled.
N.; S.: widespread and common.
Eurasia, N. Africa 1880
Waste places such as roadsides, railway yards and building sites, also on arable land.
FL Aug-Jan.
Poisonous (Connor 1977).
Henbit generally occupies similar habitats to the even commoner L. purpureum, from which it is easily distinguished by the bracts which are dissimilar to the foliage lvs. Some N.Z. populations are almost or completely cleistogamous whilst in other places the fls are chasmogamous and conspicuous. Some plants in S. Canterbury approach the closely related L. molucellifolium Fries in appearance, but this has a calyx which is not silky and has teeth much > tube.
