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Stachys byzantina
Also called Lamb's Ear, Lamb's Ears, Lamb's Tails, Lamb's Tongue, Woolly Betony, Lamb's Lugs, Woolly Hedge Nettle
Lamb's ear is a low-growing, silver-leaved perennial from the mint family, grown mainly for its soft woolly foliage. It thrives in full sun and sharp drainage, and it resents wet, humid soil more than dryness.
Stachys byzantina (syn. S. lanata), the lamb's-ear (lamb's ear) Monty plant or woolly hedgenettle, is a species of flowering plant in the mint family Lamiaceae, native to Armenia, Iran, and Turkey. It is cultivated throughout much of the temperate world as an ornamental plant, and is naturalised in some locations as an escapee from gardens. Plants are very often found under the synonym Stachys lanata or Stachys olympica.
Lamb's-ear flowers in late spring and early summer; plants produce tall spike-like stems with a few reduced leaves. The flowers are small and light purple. The plants tend to be evergreen but can "die back” during cold winters and regenerate new growth from the crowns.
Lamb's-ear is a commonly grown plant for children's gardens, as it is easy to grow and the thick felt-like leaves are fun to touch. It is also used as an edging plant. In Brazil it is used as an edible herb, called peixinho-da-horta prepared battered and deep-fried sprinkled with lemon juice and said to taste fish-like. It has sometimes been used as a medicinal plant.
A number of cultivars exist including white flowering forms, plants with shorter habit and plants that do not bloom as much:
Stachys byzantina extract has shown antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus that is resistant to vancomycin.
Artichoke betony · Bugle hedgenettle · Annual hedgenettle · Stachys minor
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Stachys byzantina by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
