Wonder Weeds – Red Deadnettles
This is Part 2 of “Wonder Weeds – Dandelions and Deadnettles.”
(Part 1: Dandelions.)
Red Deadnettles (Lamium purpureum) are not quite so early to flower as Dandelions but they can be abundant in March and April. As well as being an excellent source of pollen and nectar, these annual wildflowers can form quite large clumps that provide ideal cover for all sorts of invertebrates. A patch in my local cemetery was swarming with lots of Hairy Shieldbugs one warm spring day. The attractive bugs were clambering about the plants and I found several mating pairs. Seven-spot Ladybirds will shelter under Red Deadnettles too and emerge en masse as soon as the sun comes out and the temperature rises.
A good patch of Red Deadnettles in a sheltered sunny spot will positively hum with activity. Bumblebees probe the deep flowers with their long tongues and you may also find one of my favourite spring solitary bees, Anthophora plumipes, known as the Hairy-footed Flower-bee from the long hairs on the male’s front tarsi (feet). They have a characteristic high-pitched buzz and are often heard before they are seen (the bumblebee’s buzz is a much deeper drone). Males will patrol a patch of flowers, zipping back and forth and occasionally landing to rest on a favoured patch of earth or leaf. When a female appears, the male takes up position a few inches behind her and hovers, adjusting his position before zooming in and grabbing her and attempting to mate. These lovely solitary bees exhibit sexual dimorphism in that the sexes are completely different in appearance. The females are all black apart from conspicuous orange pollen baskets on the hind legs whereas the males are a rich brown with a darker tip to the abdomen, although the brown fades as they age and old, worn individuals can look almost greyish. When first noticing these bees, people often assume they are two different species.
If you have Anthophora plumipes around a patch of Red Deadnettles then it is worth looking out for Melecta albifrons, sometimes known as the Mourning Bee from the black and white colour pattern (after a mourning cloak which, incidentally, is the name sometimes given to the Camberwell Beauty butterfly for the same reason). This attractive bee is a cleptoparasite of Anthophora plumipes, laying its eggs in their nest cells. They can be quite plentiful around large nesting aggregations of their hosts but I generally come across individuals on Red Deadnettles and also Green Alkanet (an invasive non-native but seemingly an important nectar source for bees and hoverflies) from where they can sneakily follow a foraging female Anthophora plumipes back to her nest.
As an annual wildflower, Red Deadnettles can make up surprisingly large patches but soon flower, seed and die back. In my local cemetery there are good patches most years, popping up in different places, but always attracting lots of invertebrates. Unfortunately the desire to have a tidy cemetery means they get mown all too often. Not only does this destroy a food source as well as good ground cover it also results in the destruction of a number of bees. In typical spring weather, bees warm up in sunshine as the temperature rises and they go off foraging. As soon as clouds appear and the temperature drops they become inactive and usually just sit on the flowers, rather torpid, waiting for the next sunny spell. This is ideal weather for me because I can watch the bees foraging and then get up really close when they are forced into immobility as cloud intermittently covers the sun. It also means that when the mower blades close in they are unable to fly away and probably get mashed up by the mower. I have raised this issue with the cemetery management and there are now plans in place to mark patches of the deadnettles each year that can be left in order to preserve some bees and other invertebrates as well as seed for future plants.
Bumblebees love to forage on Red Deadnettles, using their long tongues to probe the deep flowers and get at the nectar. In this way they collect pollen on their heads from one flower and transfer it to the next, thus pollinating the plants in return for the nectar they provide. There are several species of cuckoo bumblebee in Britain which do not make a nest and provide for their young. Instead, as the name suggests, the female lays her eggs in the nest of another bee, driving out or killing the queen and then usurping the workers to raise her own brood of females and males. The female cuckoos superficially resemble the host queens but differ in lacking pollen collecting apparatus (the scopa) on their hind legs. They also tend to have dark tinted wings and a shinier, less hairy abdomen with a tough cuticle to protect them when they enter the host’s nest.
Because of the shape of the flowers, Red Deadnettles tend to mainly attract bumblebees rather than solitary bees (Anthophora plumipes being the honourable exception). Some of the larger Andrena species may be found visiting the flowers although on the whole most of these so-called mining bees will prefer the more open flowers of Dandelions. Another very important source of pollen in spring is actually Sallows and many early flying solitary bees forage almost exclusively on the catkins.
Butterflies can also get at the nectar at the base of the deadnettles’ deep flower tubes by way of their long proboscis. The Brimstone butterfly is a real herald of spring and in some years I am fortunate enough to visit the Norfolk Brecks just when they emerge from hibernation and there are literally dozens of them on the wing. The males are a much deeper sulphur yellow than the females (which can appear almost greenish) and fly rapidly up and down forestry rides in pursuit of a mate. A good patch of Red Deadnettles can lure them from their pursuits to refuel, along with other spring butterflies like the Orange-tip.
Each spring we plant up some tubs with Red Deadnettles to put in a sunny spot for bumblebees. There isn’t much bare soil for them to seed into in our garden so we transplant them from our nearby allotment where they are plentiful. Here they are a good cover for the sandy soil over winter, along with other annuals, getting dug in as a green manure in spring to add fertility to the soil. Patches are left to flower and seed, providing cover for various invertebrates as well as the all important nectar and pollen and ensuring more plants for the following year.
