Yellow archangel

Short Description

The yellow archangel can grow up to 80 centimetres high.

The dark green leaves are heart-shaped to elongated and dentate at the leaf margin. They often have white spots on the upper surface. The leaves look like nettle leaves but have no stinging hairs.

The stem grows prostrate to ascending. It is square in diameter and forms numerous runners.

The flowers building false whorls (verticillaster) in the axil of the leaves. They are yellow. The corolla consists of two lips. The upper lip is helmet-shaped. The lower lip is divided into three parts and has brown-red spots.

The fruits are small, single-seeded nutlets. There are always four of them in the calyx of the flower.

In the city

The yellow archangel often grows on fresh, nutrient-rich and loose soils such as in woods and under hedges and bushes. Originally, many varieties of golden nettle grew only as an ornamental plant in gardens. For several decades, the form or subspecies with large white spots on the leaves, which appeared as a hybrid of cultivated plants from gardens, has also spreading wild and is more common in the city than the original form.