Hello All, As a gardener, I should be able to identify this plant I saw surrounding the trees and shrubs in a prospective client's back yard in Newburyport, MA. I'm amazed it's still blooming on this warm week in early December . The 6-8" upright stem has the leaves of a nettle without any stinging hairs on the stem, but there are light hairs along each leaf stem that do not sting. The white flower has an upper hood, similar to a flowering pea of any sort, with a smaller white petal beneath it. There are several of these little 2-tiered blossoms circumscribing the top of the stem with more green nettle-like leaves ABOVE the flower. The plant is not in any of my books of wild flowers, flowering weeds, annuals or perennials. What could it be? Bluebonnet moderator's note: moved topic to more appropriate forum
Is there any chance you could get a photograph of your mystery plant bluebonnet? It would make IDing it for you so much easier. :-D WELCOME to GardenStew.
tomorrow i'll be visiting this client with my gardening proposal and i'll take a photo to post! i think the plant could be lamium album, but why oh why isn't such a common plant shown in any of my wonderful books? bluebonnet
Is this the plant you need ID'd bluebonnet? Lamium Album - white dead nettle. I found it listed under British wildflowers.
yes, that's it. thank you very much. it needs to be in the US books as i believe it to be quite common in new england. i've considered, given the number of wildflowers i've seen around here that are not listed in any of my books, of producing a new book, at least for my regional area. what do you think? are there enough of them out there or does the market need one? bluebonnet
Go ahead and give it a go. There's never too many books on native wildflowers around for any region. :-D
If you decide to do the book on New England, why not combine the beautiful with the practical and add notes that tell the reader which plants are edible or of other use to people, and which are not?