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Trailing among the grass of the copse and hedgebank the Ground Ivy is one of the earliest of flowers to appear in spring. It has not the remotest relationship to the real ivy (Hedera helix), but, like the Dead Nettle, is a labiate plant. The slender square stem creeps along, and wherever it puts forth a pair of leaves it sends down a tuft of fibrous roots also. The leaves are roundish, kidney-shaped, deeply round-toothed on the margin. The flowers are borne in the axils of leaf-like bracts. The corolla-tube is long, slender at base, afterwards dilating. Some of the purple-blue flowers are large and perfect, others small and devoid of stamens. March to June. There is a closely allied, but rare, species called the Catmint (N. cataria) which flowers from July to September. This has an erect stem, with leaves approaching more to heart-shape, the teeth sharper; both stem and leaves downy and whitish. Flowers white, marked with rose-colour. The name Nepeta is the classical Latin one, and is said to have been given because the plant was common round the town of Nepet in Tuscany.

Ground Ivy. Nepeta glechoma. —Labiateæ.— Ivy-leaved Toadflax. Linaria cymbalaria. —Scrophularineæ.—